Washington's landscape is diverse - it has everything from desert to rainforest. The city of Seattle is surrounded by water and mountains on both sides. Mount Ranier is a behemoth of a mountain, rising 14409 feet from near sea level. It is considered one of the snowiest places on Earth, and takes up so much of the moisture from the west, that an immensely dry rainshadow lies to its east.
Seattle is nestled between the Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington, a large freshwater lake. The Olympic Peninsula is to the west of the Puget Sound, and contains a large temperate rainforest, formed from an average annual rainfall of 140 inches. For reference, Seattle's average annual rainfall is 37 inches and Denver's is 14 inches (rainfall equivalent including about 60 inches of snow per year).
Seattle is also surrounded by mountains on both sides - the Olympic range to the west and the Cascades to the east. The Cascades have been formed by the subduction of the Juan de Fuca Tectonic Plate under the North American Plate. For information on the formation of the Olympic Range, see this site. Mount Rainier is Washington's only 14er, while five of the Cascades are active (or potentially active) volcanoes: Rainier, Baker, Adams, Glacier Peak, and most famously, Mt. St. Helens. Rainier and Baker can both claim to be the snowiest place on earth, by different measures - Rainier by average annual snowfall and Baker by having the single snowiest year ever recorded (though there are some places in Japan that claim the title).
Beautiful post!!
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