Wettest Year Ever In St. George (But We’re Still Pretty Dry)

With still two weeks left in the official "weather year," (which runs from October to September), St. George has recorded 15.79 inches of precipitation.

That's an all-time record in a town that averages only about eight inches of rain a year.

And while the rain has been nice, water officials like Washington County Water Conservancy District boss Zac Renstrom reminds us that it would take about three years of this kind of moisture to finally bust the drought we've been in.

Plus, compared to a few other cities around the country, it's easy to see that we do in fact live in a desert.

For instance, Hilo, Hawaii (population 45,000), on the rainy side of the Big Island of Hawaii, has 211 rainy days a year.

St. George averages about 64 days a year in which measurable precipitation is recorded. Even this "weather year," when we had nearly double the number of moisture days that we usually do, we were barely half the number of Hilo.

Other extremely rainy towns across the United States include Sitka, AK, (population 8,400). with 173 rainy days; Seattle, WA (population 733,000) with 156 rainy days a year; Sequim, WA. (population 8,200) with 143 rainy days, West Palm Beach, FL. (population 117,000) with 131 rainy days, and Dunkirk, NY. (population 12,600) with 130 rainy days.

To see the list of the top 10 rainiest towns, click here.

Let's face it, one of the reasons we live here is because we love the sunshine that Utah's Dixie provides.

That means water worries and droughts are a part of what we live with. And we're OK with that. If we weren't, we'd move to a place like Hilo or West Palm Beach or Seattle.

Or maybe Mount Waialeale on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. In 2018, the legendary peak received 519 inches of rain. That's roughly 65 times the amount of rain St. George gets annually and 33 times the amount of rain we got last year.

Now that's wet.