# What would life be like if the precipitation ratio were swapped? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 12, 2023, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100 "2023-01-12T14:01:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100/1 "2023-01-12T14:01:49Z")
How would life have evolved differently on a much wetter planet, one where for a given area, the amount of time spent raining and not raining was flipped? Also, what conditions would give rise to such a planet? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100/2 "2023-01-12T14:38:24Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > the amount of time spent raining and not raining was flipped? I can’t even figure out what this means. Elaborate. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100/3 "2023-01-12T14:44:29Z")
We already have tropical rainforests on earth, where the amount of precipitation is much more than twice what humans experience in most parts of the world. So if you’re asking what would create a much larger tropical climate zone on a planet, the answer is a thicker atmosphere, which means a warmer climate similar to Earth’s cretaceous period. The cretaceous period was warmer because the atmosphere had quite a lot more C02 that it has now. If you’re asking what kind of life would evolve to live in a place like that, I suppose the answer is “dinosaurs.” ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100/4 "2023-01-12T14:59:43Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I can’t even figure out what this means. Elaborate. AIUI, it means the Atacama desert would be constantly drenched. What would happen to the Amazon though? It’s a rain forest right now, but if it only rains 30% of the time as it is, then in the “flipped” scenario, it will be raining 70% of the time. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100/5 "2023-01-12T15:13:15Z")
Yeah. I’m not sure if there would be any area that would be “drier” than it is right now. I don’t have numbers but I feel like where I live in Ohio it’s raining maybe 2% of the time. I was thinking, what would I do if it were raining 98% of the time and there were brief periods where it wasn’t? Would I be annoyed at the non-rain? Rejoice in a respite of dryness? And then I thought, how would less advanced cultures deal with this? Fire would have probably never been discovered. Would agriculture? And then I thought, what would plants even look like? And that’s where I stopped and started this thread. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100/6 "2023-01-12T16:14:16Z")
98% of the time? Spend a winter in Vancouver or Seattle. Plants love it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2023, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-life-be-like-if-the-precipitation-ratio-were-swapped/978100/7 "2023-01-12T22:09:28Z")
Drizzling or lightly raining a lot is like Seattle or rain forests or cloud forests. But a place with, e.g., 98% of the time raining and having a significant rainfall rate like even a half-inch per hour would be an entirely different scenario on an entirely different planet. That’d be, e.g., 11.76" per day or 4,292 inches per year or 357 _feet_ per year. For comparison, here’s some info on the rainiest places on Earth, which get at most 10% of that rate: > **[Rain | Wettest known locations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain#Wettest_known_locations)** > > Cherrapunji, situated on the southern slopes of the Eastern Himalaya in Shillong, India is the confirmed wettest place on Earth, with an average annual rainfall of 11,430 mm (450 in). The highest recorded rainfall in a single year was 22,987 mm (905.0 in) in 1861. The 38-year average at nearby Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India is 11,873 mm (467.4 in). The wettest spot in Australia is Mount Bellenden Ker in the north-east of the country which records an average of 8,000 mm (310 in) per year, with o Llor... Here’s some NWS examples of what various rainfall rates look like: **[Rain Rate Visualizer (weather.gov)](https://www.weather.gov/lox/rainrate)**. As you can see, the half-inch/hour rate I proposed as an example is a soaking rain, but it isn’t a monster driving rain. In official NWS parlance, 0.5"/hr. is the cutoff between “moderate rain” and “heavy rain”.