Fourth Grade
Worksheets
Olympic National Park
Would you like to visit a rain forest in the United States? Olympic National Park has one. This park is found in the state of Washington. It is a temperate rain forest. This is different from a tropical rain forest. A tropical rain forest climate is always warm because it is found close to the equator. If it is far from the equator, it is a temperate rain forest. A temperate climate has four seasons. The weather is not too hot or too cold. All rain forests get a lot of precipitation. The rain forest at Olympic National Park gets an average of twelve feet of rain each year!
The rain forest is on the west side of the mountains. The western valleys get most of the rain. On the east side, there is a rain shadow effect. The east side is much drier. A rain shadow is the area that does not receive as much rain because something tall, such as a mountain, is in the way. The east side receives only about 25 inches of rain each year. This is very different from the west side!
