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Its funny reading the descriptions of weather for the eastern US. I tried explaining to someone just last week that what GA and NY call "rain" is not what we s

by taeric 3y ago

Its funny reading the descriptions of weather for the eastern US. I tried explaining to someone just last week that what GA and NY call "rain" is not what we see in Seattle. Such that, "does it really rain a lot" is tough to answer. In very real terms, what they think of as rain is a once a year thing here.

avgcorrection 3y ago
Wikipedia says that it rains 39.34 inches annually in Seattle. Is that a lot? EDIT: I looked up NYC and the precipitation (Wikipedia lists precipitation and snow) is 49.52 inches. (I thought of a similar conversation from many years ago on the NYC or some other East Coast city compared to Seattle.) Seattle has 156.2 rainy days. Not listed for NYC. I guess a lot less.
- contravariant 3y ago
  That's suspiciously close to 1m. Which sounds like a lot to me, but who knows.
  - chrismcb 3y ago
    That is 1m a year. Which is like 3mm a day (if it rained every day) but really Seattle gets that over about 9 months. Which is like 4 or 5mm a day.
  - ian-g 3y ago
    Hi from Seattle. It's currently raining, and I wish I'd left my jacket at home. We get an almost constant drizzle of wet in winter. Once or twice a year, it'll rain for 48 hours straight and dump three inches of water on us, but the rest of the time, it's like unpleasantly heavy fog
- kibwen 3y ago
  Rain in the PNW tends to be via a high number of days with very low-intensity rainfall. Grey, drizzly days are common but downpours are relatively rare.
- taeric 3y ago
  As the other responses note, I'd say it doesn't rain that much here. Now, oddly, it often looks like it has rained for far longer. And, in general, our rain season is the dark season, which sucks for other reasons.
- lazide 3y ago
  Seattle is more 'grey' than rainy. Which means things don't dry out, and it's really rough on Vitamin D levels. But not necessarily a lot of actual precipitation. The Olympic or Cascade Mountain Ranges that roughly bracket Seattle get most of the actual precipitation. Even Snoqualmie which is right next to Seattle but a little higher gets ~ double the actual precipitation. Snoqualmie Pass (only ~ 3000 ft) nearby gets ~ 100 inches of precipitation, and 400 inches of snow on an average year.
- goodbyesf 3y ago
  > Wikipedia says that it rains 39.34 inches annually in Seattle. Is that a lot? The precipitation in seattle (mist) and the precipitation in nyc ( rain ) are two different animals. For example, pretty much everyone in nyc owns an umbrella. Pretty much nobody in seattle owns an umbrella. Why would that be if it 'rains' more in seattle? It's probably true that seattle gets more precipitation because it's constantly misty for 6 or 7 months. You can go weeks without seeing the sun in seattle. In nyc, the precipitation is mostly in the form of actual rain and downpours. You can dumped on and the clouds clear. Maybe a system will bring downpours for a couple of days. But it always clears. You rarely get dumped on in seattle and if so, for a short time frame. And the skies never clear. It just remains and annoys you with mist. > Seattle has 156.2 rainy days. Nope. Not rainy days. Maybe 6 rainy days and 150 misty days. In the northeast, you can actual weather. In the west coast, it's flimsy weather. I've no other word to describe it. People who experienced both will get what I'm trying to say.
PhasmaFelis 3y ago
Man, it's true. I'd heard Seattleites bragging about not owning umbrellas despite the rain, and I thought they were hardcore until I visited and realized that it hardly ever really rains there. It's mostly a continuous, pleasant light mist, like you might spritz yourself with on a hot day. You can stay out for hours in a cotton hoodie and your hair won't get wet.
- tzs 3y ago
  In the 30+ years I've been in the Seattle area I've used my umbrella at least two orders of magnitude less than I used it in my prior 4 years in the Bay Area, 10 years in the Los Angeles area, 10 years in the San Joaquin valley, and 10 years in Riverside county east of Los Angeles. I quickly learned that (1) actually staying dry all the time here was hopeless unless I carried the umbrella all the time, and (2) most of the time if I forget it the rain just got me slightly damp which wasn't all that bad (except for my glasses), and (3) when the rain was intense enough that I would not want to brave it without my umbrella, it usually only took a few minutes before it was back to the slightly damp kind of rain and so really only needed it to keep the rain off my glasses. That was easy to address with a hat with a brim that was a two or three inches wide. Occasionally the rain is accompanied by wind, which led to a second hat that had a wider brim (to deal with rain coming in at an angle) and a chin strap.
  - QuercusMax 3y ago
    I just joined the hat-wearers club here in Portland. I wear glasses, so rain on my face is very annoying, but rain on the rest of me doesn't really bother me much. I have what I'd call an "Indiana Jones style hat" made of some sort of fake leather looking fabric that's done a decent job so far.
anonacct37 3y ago
I moved to Seattle from Utah. I. Utah when it rains it's big fat drops that splash on your face. You almost want to wear sunglasses to see. That is relatively rare in Seattle area. It is really more of a mist most of the time. Where I live there are so many giant trees that even when it's "raining" you often stay pretty dry.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ethbr1 3y ago
"Rain" is surprisingly relative. As someone who recently lived in north GA, now temporarily in Florida, it's quite different too. What someone would call a rainy day in GA ('I wake up, it's raining, and it rains all day') FL gets... maybe 4 non-hurricane days a year? In contrast, rain in FL terms ('It's sunny, then the sky opens up and pours for 30 minute intervals between 3-6pm, between and after which it's also sunny') is essentially most of the summer.
- taeric 3y ago
  Explaining the downpour of hurricane season is always fun. I legit don't think people believe the stories. To be fair, it reminds me of the videos people have of throwing water in the air and it freezing before it lands. That sounds fake just typing it. :)
  - bavell 3y ago
    I have video of when the eye of hurricane Sally passed over my house a few years back. Pretty surreal experience during and after.

by taeric 3y ago

avgcorrection 3y ago

Wikipedia says that it rains 39.34 inches annually in Seattle. Is that a lot? EDIT: I looked up NYC and the precipitation (Wikipedia lists precipitation and snow) is 49.52 inches. (I thought of a similar conversation from many years ago on the NYC or some other East Coast city compared to Seattle.) Seattle has 156.2 rainy days. Not listed for NYC. I guess a lot less.

contravariant 3y ago
That's suspiciously close to 1m. Which sounds like a lot to me, but who knows.
- chrismcb 3y ago
  That is 1m a year. Which is like 3mm a day (if it rained every day) but really Seattle gets that over about 9 months. Which is like 4 or 5mm a day.
- ian-g 3y ago
  Hi from Seattle. It's currently raining, and I wish I'd left my jacket at home. We get an almost constant drizzle of wet in winter. Once or twice a year, it'll rain for 48 hours straight and dump three inches of water on us, but the rest of the time, it's like unpleasantly heavy fog
kibwen 3y ago
Rain in the PNW tends to be via a high number of days with very low-intensity rainfall. Grey, drizzly days are common but downpours are relatively rare.
taeric 3y ago
As the other responses note, I'd say it doesn't rain that much here. Now, oddly, it often looks like it has rained for far longer. And, in general, our rain season is the dark season, which sucks for other reasons.
lazide 3y ago
Seattle is more 'grey' than rainy. Which means things don't dry out, and it's really rough on Vitamin D levels. But not necessarily a lot of actual precipitation. The Olympic or Cascade Mountain Ranges that roughly bracket Seattle get most of the actual precipitation. Even Snoqualmie which is right next to Seattle but a little higher gets ~ double the actual precipitation. Snoqualmie Pass (only ~ 3000 ft) nearby gets ~ 100 inches of precipitation, and 400 inches of snow on an average year.
goodbyesf 3y ago
> Wikipedia says that it rains 39.34 inches annually in Seattle. Is that a lot? The precipitation in seattle (mist) and the precipitation in nyc ( rain ) are two different animals. For example, pretty much everyone in nyc owns an umbrella. Pretty much nobody in seattle owns an umbrella. Why would that be if it 'rains' more in seattle? It's probably true that seattle gets more precipitation because it's constantly misty for 6 or 7 months. You can go weeks without seeing the sun in seattle. In nyc, the precipitation is mostly in the form of actual rain and downpours. You can dumped on and the clouds clear. Maybe a system will bring downpours for a couple of days. But it always clears. You rarely get dumped on in seattle and if so, for a short time frame. And the skies never clear. It just remains and annoys you with mist. > Seattle has 156.2 rainy days. Nope. Not rainy days. Maybe 6 rainy days and 150 misty days. In the northeast, you can actual weather. In the west coast, it's flimsy weather. I've no other word to describe it. People who experienced both will get what I'm trying to say.

PhasmaFelis 3y ago

Man, it's true. I'd heard Seattleites bragging about not owning umbrellas despite the rain, and I thought they were hardcore until I visited and realized that it hardly ever really rains there. It's mostly a continuous, pleasant light mist, like you might spritz yourself with on a hot day. You can stay out for hours in a cotton hoodie and your hair won't get wet.

tzs 3y ago
In the 30+ years I've been in the Seattle area I've used my umbrella at least two orders of magnitude less than I used it in my prior 4 years in the Bay Area, 10 years in the Los Angeles area, 10 years in the San Joaquin valley, and 10 years in Riverside county east of Los Angeles. I quickly learned that (1) actually staying dry all the time here was hopeless unless I carried the umbrella all the time, and (2) most of the time if I forget it the rain just got me slightly damp which wasn't all that bad (except for my glasses), and (3) when the rain was intense enough that I would not want to brave it without my umbrella, it usually only took a few minutes before it was back to the slightly damp kind of rain and so really only needed it to keep the rain off my glasses. That was easy to address with a hat with a brim that was a two or three inches wide. Occasionally the rain is accompanied by wind, which led to a second hat that had a wider brim (to deal with rain coming in at an angle) and a chin strap.
- QuercusMax 3y ago
  I just joined the hat-wearers club here in Portland. I wear glasses, so rain on my face is very annoying, but rain on the rest of me doesn't really bother me much. I have what I'd call an "Indiana Jones style hat" made of some sort of fake leather looking fabric that's done a decent job so far.

anonacct37 3y ago

I moved to Seattle from Utah. I. Utah when it rains it's big fat drops that splash on your face. You almost want to wear sunglasses to see. That is relatively rare in Seattle area. It is really more of a mist most of the time. Where I live there are so many giant trees that even when it's "raining" you often stay pretty dry.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ethbr1 3y ago

"Rain" is surprisingly relative. As someone who recently lived in north GA, now temporarily in Florida, it's quite different too. What someone would call a rainy day in GA ('I wake up, it's raining, and it rains all day') FL gets... maybe 4 non-hurricane days a year? In contrast, rain in FL terms ('It's sunny, then the sky opens up and pours for 30 minute intervals between 3-6pm, between and after which it's also sunny') is essentially most of the summer.

taeric 3y ago
Explaining the downpour of hurricane season is always fun. I legit don't think people believe the stories. To be fair, it reminds me of the videos people have of throwing water in the air and it freezing before it lands. That sounds fake just typing it. :)
- bavell 3y ago
  I have video of when the eye of hurricane Sally passed over my house a few years back. Pretty surreal experience during and after.