Yes, Juneau sits squarely inside a temperate rainforest. Alaska’s capital city is surrounded by the Tongass National Forest, which spans nearly 17 million acres and forms the largest intact temperate rainforest on Earth. Downtown Juneau receives over 90 inches of precipitation a year, and the landscape of towering conifers, dense moss, and fog-draped mountains is as much a rainforest as anything you’d find in the Pacific Northwest or coastal British Columbia.
Temperate Rainforest, Not Tropical
When most people picture a rainforest, they think of the tropics: hot, humid, and close to the equator. Juneau’s rainforest is a different category entirely. Temperate rainforests form along cool coastal areas farther from the equator, where moisture-laden air from the ocean collides with coastal mountains and drops enormous amounts of rain and snow. Tropical rainforests stay warm year-round with average temperatures between 20°C and 25°C (68°F to 77°F). Juneau, by contrast, has cool summers, cold winters, and regular snowfall, with the airport averaging about 94 inches of snow per year between 1943 and 2020.
What the two rainforest types share is sheer volume of precipitation. Rainforests as a biome typically receive between 79 and 394 inches of precipitation per year. Juneau fits comfortably in that range. Downtown Juneau averages over 90 inches of liquid precipitation annually, and the airport, just eight miles away, still gets around 54 inches. In 2022, the airport recorded a staggering 88.31 inches, its highest annual total on record. The difference between downtown and the airport highlights how dramatically rainfall can vary across just a few miles of mountainous terrain.
The Tongass National Forest
The rainforest surrounding Juneau isn’t a small pocket of green. The Tongass National Forest stretches across most of Southeast Alaska, covering the islands of the Alexander Archipelago, fjords, glaciers, and the peaks of the Coast Mountains. At nearly 17 million acres, it dwarfs every other national forest in the United States. Much of it is remote enough to remain ecologically intact, supporting endangered and rare species that have largely disappeared from more developed temperate rainforests farther south along the Pacific coast.
What Grows in Juneau’s Rainforest
Two tree species dominate the lowland forests around Juneau: Sitka spruce and western hemlock. Sitka spruce, Alaska’s state tree, is the largest of all spruce species and lines the Pacific coast from northern California to Prince William Sound. Western hemlock thrives in cool, damp conditions and tolerates deep shade, making it the dominant tree in mature Southeast Alaskan forests. Together, these two species form a dense canopy that keeps the forest floor perpetually shaded and moist.
Other conifers fill in around them. Alaska yellow cedar grows from sea level to the tree line throughout the region. Subalpine fir occupies higher elevations in the surrounding mountains. Beneath the canopy, the understory is lush with shrubs like Douglas maple and Sitka mountain ash, along with thick carpets of moss and ferns that thrive in the constant moisture. The overall effect is a green, layered forest that stays visually dense year-round, even in winter.
Wildlife in the Rainforest
Juneau’s rainforest supports a rich community of animals adapted to wet, forested terrain. American marten, river otter, beaver, mink, and red squirrel are all common furbearers in the region. Wolverines, coyotes, and red fox also inhabit the broader Tongass ecosystem. The waterways running through the forest support salmon runs that, in turn, attract brown and black bears and bald eagles in large numbers. Humpback whales and Steller sea lions frequent the nearby marine waters, connecting the ocean ecosystem directly to the rainforest’s coastal edge.
The sheer remoteness of much of the Tongass means wildlife populations remain healthier and more intact here than in temperate rainforests farther south, where logging and development have fragmented habitat over the past century.
What It Feels Like to Visit
If you visit Juneau expecting desert-dry sightseeing weather, you’ll be surprised. Rain is a near-constant companion, and locals joke that Juneau has two seasons: rainy and rainier. Overcast skies are the norm, and drizzle can persist for days at a stretch. Summer brings the longest dry spells, but even July and August see regular rain. The flip side is that the moisture creates stunning scenery: waterfalls cascading off mountainsides, glaciers feeding turquoise rivers, and a forest so green it looks almost unreal.
Snow adds another layer to the experience. Downtown Juneau gets roughly 40 inches of snow per year, while the airport area averages closer to 86 inches. Eaglecrest Ski Area, in the mountains above town, piles up around 185 inches. The transition from rain at sea level to heavy snow at elevation happens quickly, a reminder that this rainforest operates on a vertical gradient as much as a horizontal one.