Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
39
feet
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
A rainy US city like Seattle gets about 40 inches of rain a year. How much worse is the wettest place on Earth? It sits under the monsoon and rains almost daily, so call it ten times Seattle.
- Rainy city, a year
- ~40 in
- Wettest place beats it by
- × 10
- 400 in ÷ 12
- ≈ 33 feet
A rainy city gets about a meter of rain a year. How much worse is the wettest place on Earth? It sits under the monsoon and rains almost daily, so call it ten times that.
- Rainy city, a year
- ~1,000 mm
- Wettest place beats it by
- × 10
- 1,000 × 10
- ≈ 10,000 mm (10 m)
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India, average annual rainfall
- 11,872 mm
- In inches
- 467 in
- ÷ 12
- ≈ 39 feet of rain
Reference cited by Fermi: Guinness World Records, wettest place (average annual rainfall): Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India, 11,872 mm (467 in)
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