Wettest Palace on Earth

Peble Jeine

July 01, 2014

September 10, 2023

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Mawsynram is a village in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya state in north-eastern India, 65 kilometers from Shillong. It is reportedly the wettest place on Earth, with an annual rainfall of 11,872 millimetres. According to the Guinness Book of World Records Mawsynram received 26,000 millimetres of rainfall in 1985. Every winter the people of Mawsynram spend months preparing for the wet season ahead, anticipating nonstop rain and no sunshine for several days at a time. They repair their battered roofs. They cut and hoard firewood -- a source of light and fuel for cooking. They buy and store foodgrains, since few will venture out to shop during the wettest months between May and July.

Three reasons for high rainfall at Mawsynram

1 The warm moist winds of the northward-moving air from the Bay of Bengal during the monsoon, which cover an extensive area but are forced to converge into the narrower zone over the Khasi Hills, thus concentrating their moisture
2 The alignment of the Khasi Hills places them directly in the path of the airflow from the Bay of Bengal, producing a significant uplift
3 Finally, uplift over the Khasi Hills is virtually continuous in the monsoon period because the lifted air is constantly being pulled up by vigorous winds in the upper atmosphere, hence the rainfall is more or less continuous

What causes heavy rainfall?

Heavy rain is caused by the condensation of large amount of water vapour into clouds, produce large water droplets. Besides nature disasters such as hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons etc. As the hurricanes form over water, water vapour from the water surface are gradually being lifted up into the atmosphere through the help of latent heat, since warm air rises. These wind storms bring with them all the storm clouds and dump them onto land when the winds slow down.

Here is Top 10 Wettest and Driest Places on Earth . . .

Top 10 Wettest Place on Earth

No	Place	Country	Rainfall Recorded in mm
1	Mawsynram	India	11871mm
2	Cherrapunji	India	11777mm
3	Tutendo	Colombia	11770mm
4	Cropp	New Zealand	11516mm
5	Ureca	Equatorial Guinea	10450mm
6	Debundscha	Cameroon	10299mm
7	Big Bog	Hawaii	10272mm
8	Mt. Waialeale	Hawaii	9763mm
9	Kukui	Hawaii	9293mm
10	Emei Shan	China	8169mm

Top 10 Driest Places on Earth

No	Place	Country	Rainfall Recorded in mm
1	Dry Valleys	Antarctica	0
2	Arica	Chile	0.761 mm
3	Al-Kufrah	Libya	0.860 mm
4	Aswan	Egypt	0.861mm
5	Luxor	Egypt	0.862 mm
6	Ica	Peru	2.29 mm
7	Wadi Halfa	Sudan	2.45 mm
8	Iquique	Chile	5.08 mm
9	Pelican Point	Namibia	8.13 mm
10	Aoulef	Algeria	12.19mm