On Friday, January 15, 2021 at 3:40:27 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/15/2021 5:11 PM, wrote:
On Friday, January 15, 2021 at 12:34:33 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 10:38:08 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 7:28:31 PM UTC-6, wrote:
For all of the rain that falls in Seattle, if was almost bone dry in Moses Lake, WA. Ellensburg and Wenatchee were fairly lush
Funny thing is that despite its reputation as being so rainy, Seattle is not really that rainy. Its just myth, legend. My city of Des Moines Iowa only gets about 6 inches less rainfall/water each year. But it happens on fewer days. Seattle has its reputation due to raining so often. It just does not rain very much on each rainy day. Kind of like riding 10 miles every day of the year. Or riding 36 centuries a year. Total mileage might be the same, but they are different types of bike riding.
West of Seattle is the Olympic peninsula which absorbs the greatest amount of rain. Seattle is still DAMNED wet. Average rainfall in Seattle is 38" per per year which is the average over the entire US. Portland which is closer to the coast is 43". Here in San Francisco it is only 25" of rain a year and in LA, 15" Compare this to London with its 23" after the rain pouring over Ireland and Wales and the rest of England.


I am not doubting that Seattle SEEMS very wet and rainy. It does rain very frequently. 155 days per year. But it just rains a tiny little bit on each of those days. So Seattle really doesn't get that much rain. USA averages 38 inches of precipitation per year. Seattle averages 37 inches per year of water. Des Moines Iowa gets 36 inches in 108 days. No one thinks Des Moines is the rainiest place on earth. Like people think Seattle is the rainiest place on earth. But its only an inch different. And its a little below the USA average. But when it rains in Des Moines, it RAINS. Inch or two or three. Not the piddley hundredth of an inch it rains in Seattle. Seattle gets everything wet but its not really rain. Nothing floods. Iowa floods its creeks, streams, rivers couple times a year.

37 / 155 = 0.2387 inches water Seattle
36 / 108 = 0.3333 inches water Des Moines
Not a whole lot of difference. 1/4 inch compared to 1/3 inch. Des Moines gets more water every time it rains than Seattle. Just rains a lot more often in Seattle. But less rainfall each time.
Oddly enough, my area of Northeast Ohio has been ranked as one of the
rainiest in the U.S., but in a way similar to Seattle. This area doesn't
lead the country in inches of water per year, but it's close to the top
in the number of days in which rain (or snow) is falling out of the sky.

However, unlike the PNW, we do get thunderstorms, especially in the
summer. Big ones! I was seven miles from home a couple years ago when a
train of thunderstorms came through, one after another, dropping their
torrents along my route. The road flooding was extreme, and some parking
lots had cars up to their windows in water. The traffic backups were so
tremendous that I wondered if I would be able to make the drive home. In
the end, I made it only because my bike-based knowledge of back streets
got me around the worst messes.

It seems like afternoon summer squalls are SOP east of the Rockies and more so east of the Mississippi. One of my favorite stories is of riding through Kentucky and dropping into Falls of Rough in the middle of a epic squall and lightning storm. A car was popping up out of the camp ground right he https://tinyurl.com/y3hkpys6 It got hit by lightning when we were about fifteen feet away. It was like a Howitzer going off -- simultaneous flash-boom. It scared the snot out of me, and also scared the people in the car, who were unharmed. We hung out with the people in the car -- a guy and his girlfriend, and he claimed that just before the lightning struck, he swore some oath to his girlfriend about a story he was telling and said that if it wasn't true, may he be struck down by lightning. It seems too convenient, but his girlfriend backed him up. The lightning was well under way, so it may have fit into the conversation even before they got hit.

-- Jay Beattie.