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Comment by manacit | Hacker News Reader

It's cloudy, but not necessarily rainy (though there's plenty of that too). Even measuring the "number of days of rain" isn't the right metric for how Seattle gets it's reputation.

Look at the "cities with the least amount of sun": https://www.city-data.com/top2/c475.html - the entire top 20 is cities in Western WA.

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Yeah by far the worst experience of living there is the lack of sunlight and not the rain. Watching the sunset at 4pm while you're still stuck in an office is brutal. Much of the winter you'll wake up in darkness, go to work, and come home in darkness.

It's worth it for the summer and fall though, at least when things aren't on fire. I've never experienced nicer and more consistently amazing weather than the PNW in summer and early fall.

> Watching the sunset at 4pm while you're still stuck in an office is brutal. Much of the winter you'll wake up in darkness, go to work, and come home in darkness.

This is orthogonal to the cloudiness issue, and is the norm in most northern cities. At least it's not cold in Seattle.

First off, please stop using "orthogonal" like that. Second, the cloud cover is not "unrelated" (if that's what you meant) to the wake up and come home in darkness issue. Portland and Seattle are often dismal and dreary, but not totally "dark" in the mornings and early afternoons, making it feel and look "dark" more often here than other cities where the sun gets a chance to peek through at those early and late hours.

And I disagree with "it's not cold in Seattle." It may not be freezing most of the time, but weeks of consistent 35-45 degrees Fahrenheit weather with little sun certain feel "cold."

> First off, please stop using "orthogonal" like that.

Sorry, I will not.

> And I disagree with "it's not cold in Seattle." It may not be freezing most of the time, but weeks of consistent 35-45 degrees Fahrenheit weather with little sun certain feel "cold."

It's fair to disagree - there is a variation in people's perceptions of temperature. Having lived in colder places, it's extremely pleasant not to have to cover head, ears, and neck, and walk around without zipping up my jacket. It's extremely nice to walk 30 minutes in Seattle weather and not have my nose run from the cold. These are luxuries you don't get in colder climates - including Boston, NYC, Chicago, etc.

I haven’t spent time around Seattle, but I’m wondering if you have spent much time in the Bay Area peninsula and how you would compare the climates of the two. Picking Redwood City as a good “middle of the peninsula” location (and whose slogan is “climate best by government test”) and comparing climate stats with Seattle, it seems to me that I would prefer Redwood City in nearly every category. The clearest advantage Seattle has is the extra hour of daylight in the summer, but of course you pay that back in the winter.

Serious question, why hasn't the PNW taken on the Norwegian model of winter work? Up and to work early, leave while it's still light outside, take a few work calls in the evening from home after time with the family while it's still dark out?

TIL… Probably no one has heard of it.

I know a few folks who live in Seattle, and they all - at one point or another - attempted to convince me Seattle is not rainy. This alone is a proof Seattle is rainy enough.

On a more serious note, I agree it is about relatively little sun rather than amount of rain per se that builds this cloudy, rainy feeling in Seattle.

Total volume of rain is fairly meaningless here. The rain in Seattle comes less as "rain", and more as a mist that never ends for 3/4ths of the year.

It's like standing under the vegetable misters at the grocery store if they turned out the lights.

Exactly, people call it "rainy" when it may not technically be raining.

Seattle has a very distinctive weather pattern, and it does NOT burn off like morning fog in other cities, even though it has some similarities to heavy fog.

The rain often comes at night too, so for much of the year you experience a feeling that it has just rained, and everything is wet, but it's not actively raining.

A thing I learned in a random puzzle quest that stuck with me is that much of the PNW makes up North America's largest rainforest. We associate the term rainforest primarily with Tropical Rainforests and especially the Amazon Forest in South America, but the Pacific Northwest has and is a rainforest. Rainforests themselves are named that not for volume of rain that they have, but the consistent feeling of rain that they have. The forest itself helps build and maintain that constant "misting" water cycle that gives the feeling that it is consistently raining/has just rained/will still be raining for months at a time. That's an important part of the ecodiversity of the region, so it makes sense that it also becomes an important part of the human culture of the region (that reputation that "Seattle is always raining" despite having less rainfall than many other major US cities by volume and other metrics). But yeah, its always raining in the manner of a rainforest, not the manner of a squall or rainstorm.

There are even boas in the PNW, albeit very small and cute ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_boa

yes absolutely! The region is a "Temperate Rainforest."

> attempted to convince me Seattle is not rainy. This alone is a proof Seattle is rainy enough.

How is that proof? Do you expect all people eventually lie to you?

Seattle mists a lot, but rarely rains hard. Natives know better than to even own raincoats or umbrellas.

There was some old stat about highest sunglasses sales per capita in Seattle. That was because of unexpected sunbreaks.

Maybe because nobody ever bothered to try convince him that Yuma, Arizona, is not rainy.

exactly. spent 20 gray, drizzly, and damp years there. then came to California and realized there was life outside the stratocumulus. also in the winter it gets dark dreadfully early (~1615).

[edit 1] That said the summers are beautiful. Long days, fresh water lakes, boating, clean and crisp feeling (at least when I was there many years ago). The problem is there's no guarantee you'll get a nice day even in the summer so you end up at the mercy of that dampness.

I went to UW, and lived in Seattle for 6 years. It was miserable. The city's natural surroundings are gorgeous, but it's always cold and damp so you can't really enjoy it (unless you particularly like that kind of weather).

For about a year there was a fantastic hiking trail that started about 50 feet off my front yard. I think I walked it once...

Like you, I moved to California. Night and day difference.

Similar experience, lived in both Seattle and Portland. There is a lot to like about the Pacific Northwest and I loved living there the first few years. But as the years passed I got a bit more depressed.

Had to pay a lot more to move to California, but the sunshine tax has been worth it for me.

Same. Lived in Seattle for nearly a decade. Then I moved to San Francisco (which itself isn't known for being sunny or warm) and it was like I moved to LA. Such a dramatic difference to my mental well-being.

I grew up in a fairly dark, cloudy place and never thought anything of it, but Seattle broke me. I'm extremely sensitive to sunlight now.

The article actually mentions what you're talking about. A mist that keeps things moist almost year-round rather than bouts of strong rain.

This is the best way to look at it. I live in a hot sunny city that technically gets more rainfall than Seattle. But we’re also in a drought and when it does rain it’s a lot at once that mostly runs off. For example a couple weeks ago my house got over 4” of rain in less than an hour but now I’m right back to strict water usage rules in terms of landscape watering cycles, etc. I tend to think of Seattle as moist. I’ve spent a grand total of about 2 weeks there but even in middle of summer when I go on a hike I can tell the soil contains some moisture and has been wet recently. I’m sure it helps that the big trees and shade help slow down evaporation.

Same for England. People think it's very rainy, but it's mostly just cloudy.

Exactly this

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