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Hi, What are the five driest states, and what is the average amount of rain they get in a year? Thanks! Charla
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Hmmm......once I started thinking about this, it gets pretty complicated! Look just at our state, the south is a desert and in the north during winter at our ski resorts we get pounded. So which states measure the least amount of precipitation when averaged out?
Using the most recent climate data, so our climate set is roughly the past 30 years, the driest western states from the Western Region Climate Center are as follows.
Average Annual Precipitation in inches Nevada: 9.50 Utah: 12.22 Wyoming: 12.92 Arizona: 13.59 New Mexico: 14.58
After searching for an HOUR to find this info, the National Climate Data Center has a massive PDF file with what we need. This has information goes pretty far back, but we can use the data set as listed above (the last 30 years roughly). According to the NCDC site, the numbers above are accurate indeed. Montana, Colorado, Idaho and the Dakotas come in after our western states.
Since we come in at number 2 in Utah, it's still a wise idea to conserve water even when we aren't in a drought. Something simple you can do is turn off the water while you brush your teeth or wash your face. If you really want to help out there's some more tips on the right.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
