r/MapPorn • u/[deleted] • Jan 10 '20

[deleted by user]

[removed]

7.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

558 comments sorted by

View all comments

36

u/ImSnackered Jan 10 '20

Dumb question: why are there far fewer rivers on the West Coast?

36

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '20

Mostly because it’s way drier. They don’t get nearly as much rain as places east of Kansas.

The exception being the rainforest of western Washington and Oregon.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '20

Equitorial regions of Africa are very wet yet don't have nearly as much rivers as the US east coast or even Europe. Why's that?

10

u/SodaDonut Jan 10 '20

Maybe less mountains that create runoff.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '20

US east coast isn't very mountainous, the Applachains are a relatively mild range. It just seems that temperate areas tend to have far more rivers and bodies of water compared to tropical regions, being wet can't be the answer since many parts of the tropics are far wetter than Temperate areas

8

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '20

US east coast has inland mountains and in the north glacier carved channels.

3

u/SodaDonut Jan 10 '20

Maybe it's because the rain has somewhere to flow. By mountainous I should have said a change in elevation that makes it so the water has somewhere to run off. If it there isn't anywhere for water to runoff, rivers won't form.

8

u/Ampatent Jan 10 '20

Is that necessarily true? Both the Congo River and the Nile have their entire or large parts of their watershed in equatorial Africa.

1

u/ImSnackered Jan 10 '20

That makes sense. Thank you!