Alasdair Rae is back with another set of interesting maps. This time he maps out precipitation levels across the United Kingdom and the United States using cool 3D extruded mappings. He calls them rain shadow maps. Above is showing the average annual precipitation in the contiguous US from 1981 to 2010. The higher the peaks the higher the precipitation. Not surprisingly, the highest values are in the Pacific Northwest with over 4,064 mm (160 inches) of precipitation per annum. Some of the patterns here are also really interesting. Note California's Central Valley.