I live on the BC Coast, the region of North America with the highest annual rainfall, only a small area in SE Alaska and on the Olympic Penninsula receive about as much precip. The absolute highest is at Ocean Falls and Bella Coola plus the north tip of Vancouver Is., all palces where I have lived and worked in the outdoors in forestry.

My regular home is in "dry" Vancouver, but, I usually train-hike in the North Shore Mtns. which receive 1.5 FEET of rain in November alone. I relay on merino baselayer, light synthetic outers such as Cabela's nylon fishing pants and an eVent Thru Hiker parka from Integral Designs, plus coated nylon chaps for brushbusting, Gore-Tex wets out here in less than 15 minutes.

For emergencies, I now often carry my Hilleberg Bivanorak in red as an addition because it WILL keep one dry, no matter what the rain is like. With merino, I will often wear an Icebreaker Tornado over a light merino base layer and this works fine for 4-6 hr. hikes in even fairly heavy rain. I might add, that I have never found a synthetic top that will equal merino in comfort in cold rain...and I have tried a lot of them.