Does it really rain all the time in Seattle?

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/12/does-it-really-rain-all-time-in-seattle.html

by aaronbrethorst • 14 years ago

30 36 14 years ago

cliffmass.blogspot.com

Yes, it does.

Two months of the year (roughly centered around August), it's the most beautiful place on earth. The other times, it's dark and cloudy and raining so you can't see the beauty.

If you grew up in a Sunny place it might be difficult to live in Seattle area.

ejain• 14 years ago

Yes, please stay in California.

aneth4• 14 years ago

I think what most people observe as "raining" is when the ground is wet and the sky is overbearingly gray, looking like it will rain. From indoors, it's quite hard to determine if it is actually raining, and to most people there isn't much difference. The lack of sun and wet ground is more bothersome than precipitation.

If it rains 50% of days, that means the ground is almost always wet, and the sky is almost always dark and cloudy. To most people, that is rainy weather. Furthermore, the air is often misty and wet, but would not be measurable precipitation.

I'd love to see a similar analysis of sunshine. I did find on most days in the Seattle winter, the sun would peak through for a few hours, though usually too low in the sky to promote much Vitamin D production.

Seattle has amazing natural beauty, and sometimes the weather can be excellent even in the winter. Summers are flawless. However arguing that it doesn't "rain all the time" in the winter in Seattle might depend on whether your definition of raining is as meteorologist, or on whether you have to wear waterproof shoes and carry an umbrella.

philwelch• 14 years ago

Maybe it's because I'm a native of western Washington but I find a definite distinction between rain falling on my head and having a wet ground and cloudy skies.

victoro• 14 years ago

I lived in California for 10 years, then Seattle for 10 and now I'm back in Cali. You are totally spot on. The OP reads like a typical Seattleite rationalization of the crappy weather situation there.

The biggest problem with the rain isn't getting wet; its the lack of sunlight, slippery driving conditions and constant threat of rain.

Even the described 20% chance of rain in any given hour is surprisingly inconvenient. Riding a bike to work/school or jogging are things that I think are best if turned into habits -- done at specific times on specific days -- not on the spur of the moment after looking at a weather report. And executing a picnic or hike with any decently sized group of friends is barely possible on a moments notice.

Seattlites need to call a spade a spade. If you like doing things outside (and judging by how full the city parks get on any remotely sunny day I think a lot of Seattlites do), the weather there is consistently inconvenient for about 10 months out of the year.

larsberg• 14 years ago

> If you like doing things outside, the weather there is consistently inconvenient for about 10 months out of the year.

Within a few years, you learn to just do any outdoor activity in the rain unless it's June. And you get very friendly with gore-tex.

This was something my family and I never did in Chicago, though that's mainly due to the intensity difference. In a "Seattle drizzle" you'll be fine; in a Chicago thunderstorm, not so much.

zem• 14 years ago

also, i feel that to most people the unit of raininess is the day. even if you have a few sunny hours, but it is going to rain at some (often unpredictable) time during the day, you mentally classify that day as rainy.

phil2• 14 years ago

Well that last one is pretty easy: nobody in Seattle carries an umbrella, for any reason, ever.

waterlesscloud2• 14 years ago

I live in LA and refuse to own an umbrella on principle. Sounds like Seattle is the same but for the exact opposite reason.

finnw• 14 years ago

I guess that's how you spot the tourists. (I carried an umbrella the one time I visited Seattle, but never needed it.)

arethuza• 14 years ago

"when the ground is wet and the sky is overbearingly gray, looking like it will rain"

We Scots have a useful term for this: dreich

Linford0• 14 years ago

No, but it does in Manchester (UK)

Zenst• 14 years ago

Very true and is a big factor in the nasel accent, something that is not evident in Seattle.

raverbashing• 14 years ago

Same for Dublin

I guess I haven't seen a day (that is, a 24h period) without any sort of water falling from the sky.

robryan• 14 years ago

This is similar to Melbourne, Australia in that it is pretty rare to have full days of rain and many days where you will get period of rain, with decent sunny periods as well.

huhtenberg2• 14 years ago

Same in Vancouver. It rains only once, but for 6 months.

waterlesscloud2• 14 years ago

I love Portland, but in the time I spent there in various winters it seemed like there was a very fine misting rain pretty much all day every day for a week at a time.

Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.

ghshephard• 14 years ago

What I never understood about living in the GVRD, (Greater Vancouver Regional District) - back around 87-92, is how we had water _shortages_ in which sprinkler restrictions were in effect, you weren't allowed to wash your car with a hose, etc...

What was that all about? I would think there would be pretty much endless amounts of water in all those reservoirs... Was that just a incredibly freak occurrence/facilities impact (down pumping station) - or has there ever been a "water shortage" in vancouver again in the last 10 years?

huhtenberg2• 14 years ago

I think there are just two reservoirs, both in North Van. One of them is behind the Capilano dam, so you could actually tell that it was running low on the water volume in hotter summer months.

stopitscurvy• 14 years ago

It's been raining for the past month solid at least. That combined with the constant stupid cold has basically convinced me to move back to the south. I hate the weather here..

jlgreco2• 14 years ago

The complaints about the cold really reinforce my suspicion that everyone complaining about Seattle weather is used to California weather. Having grown up on the east coast (various places between DC and NYC), two things about Seattle weather stand out to me: it never properly rains (really it just "mists downward". Give me rain drops!), and it never actually gets cold. I really miss good proper cold weather, but it just doesn't happen in Seattle.

CamperBob2• 14 years ago

Exactly. This thread is full of people who have clearly never lived anywhere with weather that actually does "suck" (to repeat a common refrain).

Spend a winter in New England and try to tell me it sucks here. Go on, do it. This oughtta be good.

eli_gottlieb2• 14 years ago

Meh. I grew up in NY, NJ, and MA, and I hated the Seattle gray whenever I visited. It indeed never really rains, which means in Seattle you have to accommodate rain all the time while not actually getting to enjoy a good solid storm.

I like the way we have it here in Haifa. Practically no rain whatsoever for half the year, and in the winter months it oscillates between winter sun (which is still quite bright here, we share our latitude with Florida), Seattle-ite gray+drizzle (on a bad day), and thunderstorms to rival inland New England (on a good winter day). And then back to nothing but sun, heat, and coastal humidity in the warm half of the year.

phil2• 14 years ago

He should do this for the convergence zone east of Arlington (about an hour NE of Seattle). I'm pretty sure it actually is raining all the time there, and hard.

tzs• 14 years ago

The funny thing about Seattle being known as the rainy city is that there are several large cities in the midwest and east US that have more rain, more rain days, and less sun days, I believe.

So why does Seattle get the rainy city tag? I think it is because here in the Seattle area the rain is usually the worst thing we get. No one is going to talk about rain in Buffalo, for instance, when that rain came with 10 feet of snow.

Question for my fellow Puget Sound area residents--do you use an umbrella? The rain is light enough most of the time that it doesn't soak through my jacket, so I just wear a hat to keep my hair and glasses dry.

garyrichardson• 14 years ago

Vancouver, BC native. I'm 31 and I hate umbrellas.

When walking around other people's umbrellas always manage to poke at my face.

I also find it very awkward to wield an umbrella.. I've tried once or twice but tossed the thing because it got in my way.

I was in NY for a vacation in fall a few years ago. It rained for one day and was 100x worse than anything I've ever experienced in Vancouver.

Same thing with Calgary. The weather coming off the mountains onto the high plains means you have to pull your car over when a rain storm hits because you can't see 2 feet in front of you.

kalid• 14 years ago

"Rainy" means cloudy -- same psychological effect. Seattle has 58 sunny days a year (I can't believe it) and 220 overcast days a year, the largest of any major US city.

http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/119421644.html

I live in Seattle, only use an umbrella when wearing nice clothes, otherwise have a hooded rain jacket.

sgk284• 14 years ago

He's arguing based on a technicality. When most people complain about the rain, they are really talking about the lack of sunshine. If any given day has a 50-70% chance of rain at some point, imagine the probability of any given day simply being gray.

The fact is, during non-summer, almost every day is without sunshine. So much so that the local news will report the consecutive number of sunny days during the summer. During the winter, getting any kind of sunlight is such a big deal that the local forecasters use the term "filtered sun" to describe cloud coverage that is thin enough to allow light through. Having grown up on the east coast, this was a novel term to me.

I've lived in Seatle a number of years now, and it has a lot going for it, but the weather absolutely sucks. I'm not at Microsoft anymore, but when I started, they asked if I'd be okay with the weather as it is apparently a major problem for them with people not being able to handle it (not sure if this was specific to my recruiter or a company-wide thing).

shasta• 14 years ago

And even if it is "raining", the water droplets only comprise a vey small percentage of the air volume.

pipecork• 14 years ago

What the author doesn't take into account is the number of inches that it rains. Seattle rain is almost always light, only occasionally requiring a waterproof get-up. You can usually get by with a hat and thick coat.

In any case, while it doesn't rain 'often' it's certainly almost always overcast. I recommend to everyone (especially those moving from California) to pick up a bottle of vitamin D supplements.

camus• 14 years ago

the sound rain against a roof top at night, what could be more relaxing ?

harshpotatoes• 14 years ago

There are many ways to present the data such that situation in the pacific northwest doesn't seem so bad."If you look at the total inches of rainfall in Seattle, we really don't get that much rain." "Oh sure, most days it rains, but by hour it really isn't so bad." "No, you can go outside. You just need to wait for a small break in the weather, and then you can do all your errands or go play outside briefly."

Well, I suppose this is all true, but it doesn't change how depressing this is. After living in the PNW for 22 years, and then moving to Florida, I understand a lot more about how bad it is. Sure, it rains a lot more in Florida. In fact, I'd be willing to be there are more rainy days here. But, you don't spend all day waiting for that small break. You go outside, enjoy the day, and then the sky dumps several inches of water over an hour. Afterwards, the clouds are gone and the sun is back.

Gone are the days of walking through the fine mist of rain, which just seems to hover in the air and somehow soak you to the bone despite your waterproof coat. No more constant drizzle which have lasted the entire week.

The pacific northwest is a wonderful area. Beautiful scenary, wonderful hiking, amazing summers, and for the most part interesting people. But there is just something just wrong about it. Maybe it's the rain, or the overcast, or something, but now that I don't live there, I am happy.

doublerebel• 14 years ago

When it's raining in the city, it's snowing in the mountains! If you enjoy snow sports, it's hard to get upset about the rain. The snowiest mountain in North America is within a few hours of the city. The Seattle Grey is like the Seattle Freeze -- it only bothers you if you believe in it.

Does it really rain all the time in Seattle?

Related Stories