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Comment by marlowe221 | Hacker News Reader

We moved to Portland, Oregon from Jackson, Mississippi last year. Portland, like Seattle, is a stereotypical "rainy" city and Jackson is not.

Jackson gets almost 10 inches MORE rain per year on average than Portland does. For one thing, in Portland it doesn't rain at all from mid June to mid August (it rains year round in Jackson).

But reputations are interesting things!

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Gulf South rain is such a different beast from the incessant drizzle the Northwest gets. Southern rain comes in, does its business with a solid downpour, maybe some lightning, and leaves. The skies clear and you get sun. Northwest rain just sits there with an incontinent drizzle and grey skies for days on end.

Make sure you’re getting lots of vitamin D supplements, because you’re not getting the kind of sunshine your body’s used to.

IME it rains harder in the midwest, for less time. In Portland it pizzles most of the winter. Not really raining hard, just constantly wet. But summers are excellent.

I also think this has changed a lot in recent years. I've been in Portland close to 50 years and it feels like the climate has been growing warmer and drier over time.

The total amount of rain really isn't important to human perception, save perhaps flooding. One day where you get ten inches of rain vs the same ten inches spread over 100 days - people will say the second is "rainy" and the first not.

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