Wettest Places in Canada

Wettest Communities

Prince Rupert's average of 3111 millimetres (mm) (over ten feet) of precipitation a year earns it the reputation as Canada's wettest city. Nearly all the moisture landing in the ocean port city of northern British Columbia falls as rain.

But several towns on BC's rainy west coast receive much more precipitation than Prince Rupert. Hartley Bay measures an incredible 4549 mm, or nearly 15 feet, of water pelting down each year. The Gitga'at village of 180 year-round residents sits at the confluence of Grenville and Douglas Channels, about 140 km south of Prince Rupert.

Rainier yet are some of the weather stations located at fish hatcheries and lighthouses scattered along coastal BC. Among these, Henderson Lake, located between Port Alberni and Ucluelet on western Vancouver Island ranks as the wettest. The fish hatchery there received 9082 mm (nearly 30 feet) of precipitation in 1997.

Because so many places in British Columbia excel at rain, the rainiest places in the rest of Canada are ranked in a separate table below. That is followed by a list of the biggest downpours ever recorded for a single day in Canada. All of those rainstorms, of course, took place in British Columbia.

Average annual precipitation for very wet communities in British Columbia:

Location	millimetres
Hartley Bay	4549
Holberg	3912
Port Renfrew	3671
Tofino	3306
Prince Rupert	3111
Gold River	2846

Rest of Canada

The Atlantic coast gets nowhere near the amount of precipitation that deluges Canada's Pacific coast.

Average total yearly precipitation for some of the wetter spots in other provinces:

Location	millimetres
Wreck Cove Brook, Nova Scotia	1945
Pools Cove - Fortune Bay, Newfoundland	1829
Louisbourg, Nova Scotia	1599
Sydney, Nova Scotia	1505
Alliston, PEI	1182
Charlottetown, PEI	1173
Sept-Iles, Quebec	1156
Stratford, Ontario	1064
Cameron Falls, Alberta	1103

Record Rainfalls

A few places on BC's west coast have received more than 254 mm (10 inches) of rain in a single day, more than some areas of Canada get in a year.

Some of the biggest downpours ever recorded for a single day in Canada:

Location	mm	Date
Seymour Falls, BC	314	Jan 14, 1961
Seymour Falls, BC	300	Nov 10, 1990
Port Renfrew, BC	293	Feb 23, 1986
Hartley Bay, BC	276	Oct 8, 1991
Nitinat River Hatchery, BC	257	Nov 7, 1995
Seymour River Hatchery, BC	255	Nov 10, 1990