accurate weather please!! (Portland, Clackamas, Cove: how much, home, buy)

[Mariarox76]

How much does it actually rain in portland, OR? People tell me its nice 3 months out of the year, the rest of the time its always wet and rainy and cloudy with no sun... I'd like the honest truth from natives that live there.. also is the climate dry or humid?


Thanks,
Maria

[urbanlife78]

It rains every day, never move there.

Nah, I am just messing with you. It is really nice about three months out of the year, but the climate the rest of the time is usually very mild and overcast, so you don't see the sun much. Always best to suggest planning trips to sunny places during the winter.

As for the rain, it is a combination of raining, drizzle, could rain, has rained, isn't raining but damp out because it is overcast out.

And during January, it might get cold enough to snow or worse, a rare ice storm.

[Nell Plotts]

Buy Cliff Mass's book on weather of the Pacific NW. His is as accurate as it gets.

[Numa]

FYI, it's a dry climate, not humid. Although it does rain a lot, that doesn't equal humid conditions like the South. I think statistically there are about 65 sunny (i.e, cloudless) days a year.

[wanderbygrace]

Originally Posted by Mariarox76

How much does it actually rain in portland, OR? People tell me its nice 3 months out of the year, the rest of the time its always wet and rainy and cloudy with no sun... I'd like the honest truth from natives that live there.. also is the climate dry or humid?


Thanks,
Maria

Here is what I've observed in my last two years of living in northern Clackamas County (elevation 150'):

December-February
Temperatures: highs usually in the 40's and lows in the 30's; almost never below 20 or above 50
Precipitation: very rare snowfall (hasn't been enough to even consider shoveling in the last two years); weekly frosts (but not every day); rains fairly often, but often in a drizzle or mist, not an outright downpour
Cloud Cover: most days are gray and gloomy; about every third say sees a small amount of sun breaks; about once per week sees a fairly sunny day; about once very two weeks is a "oh my goodness, there's Mt. Hood!" day.

March-April/October-November
Temperatures: highs usually in the 50's and lows in the 30-40's; almost never above 60 or below 30
Precipitation: extremely rare snowfall in the valley; rains at least half of the days and you never know if you're going to get a mist, drizzle, or downpour; almost never a frost
Cloud Cover: most days are gray, some are downright gloomy; sun breaks every other day; clear days about every fourth day; Mt. Hood view day about once per week

June, Late September
Temperatures: highs in 60's, lows in 40's/50's; rarely above 75 or below 40; I find this period to be muggier, as the temps rise, but the humidity hasn't started to fall yet
Precipitation: if you have an outdoor event planned, it'll rain; otherwise it rains (usually lighter rains) about 1/3 of the days; never a frost
Cloud Cover: most days are pretty nice; cloud cover seems to brighter than darker; more and more sun breaks, clear days, and Mt. Hood view days

July-Mid September
Temperatures: highs in the 70's-100, low's in the 40's-60's; rarely above 100 or below 40; mugginess is rare, because when it heats up the humidity nose dives; a/c is sometimes preferred (about two weeks out of every year)
Precipitation: what's rain?
Cloudy Cover: almost every day is sunny and dry; last year, we went 100 days w/o more than a trace of rain; days are also clear enough that the mountains are out just about every day

Not a perfect synopsis, but reasonably close.

Some notes:
In the two years I've been here, it's ranged from 18 to 103, temperature wise. 103 isn't pleasant, but w/little humidity, it's surprisingly tolerable if you can get out of the sun. In the summer, humidity and heat work inversely, instead of in the same direction like the MW and SE. I brought a snow shovel with me - so far, I've used it to shovel bark dust. Lots of people use studded tires that live in the hillier areas, but in the flatter valley areas, I haven't needed them yet - although I must admit to having spent many years driving in Ohio winters, so I have far more experience than native Portlanders how to drive on snow/ice. Beware of the first rains of the fall - with little rain in the summer, gunk & oil build up on the roads, causing them to be VERY slick for those first few rains. Mold/mildew/moss is a very real problem here, as it doesn't get cold enough to kill it in the winter.

[skiffrace]

1. Rain is not the problem, actually. As the post by urbanlife78 states, it is usually

could rain, has rained

etc. Even when it rains, it is a low-volume rain, not the downpours typical in other parts of the country.
The problem is the everlasting gloom and darkness that persist for most of the year. The post by wanderbygrace exaggerates the amount of sunshine in the rainy season. I doubt very much there is one full sunny day on average every winter week. One sunny hour per week is closer to the truth.

2. Except this year, which is extraordinarily dry and sunny, November to March are the "heart of darkness" months. April to June are a tossup - some years (2011, 2012 for example) the darkness continues. Some others sun starts showing up once in a while.

3. The perfect summer weather varies from year-to-year from just over 2 months (July, August, a bit of September) to over 4 months (part of June, July, August, September, part of October)

4. Snow or ice happen next to never, but when they do, they paralyze the region. PDX has almost no means to deal with them, so when it snows, they plow the interstates and couple of major thoroughfares only.
If you are snowbound on your residential street, you simply sit at home and wait for the snow to melt. Example: January 2008, December 1999.

5. Temperatures are quite perfect - you can go to Fred Meyer in January and see people in shorts and sandals, just the same as in July.

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by skiffrace

4. Snow or ice happen next to never, but when they do, they paralyze the region. PDX has almost no means to deal with them, so when it snows, they plow the interstates and couple of major thoroughfares only.
If you are snowbound on your residential street, you simply sit at home and wait for the snow to melt. Example: January 2008, December 1999.

Please!

This is almost as bad as the "it always rains myth," no amount of snow plows or efforts to remove it would stop the black ice that forms when it does get that bad around here. Black ice is extremely slippery, it never gets rough and torn up by chains because of how the temperatures hover right at the freezing point - the ice melts slightly then refreezes smooth as glass. Couple this with the amount of hills in the area and there is absolutely zip anyone can do except to wait for it to melt off. This is usually within a few hours 1999 and 2008 were once a decade issues.

[JakeDog]

Clouds, clouds, clouds. Temperate, though. If you don't mind clouds and mist you can walk/run almost all days of the year. Sometimes 3 good months (July, August, September), sometimes very little summer at all. Occassional great days anytime of the year. If you have SAD, it's miserable. If you don't, it's pretty nice.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Don't forget that during the rainy season, the natural wintertime tilt of the earth gives us short days and the sun is not overhead, it's kind of low on the southern horizon.

Short days in winter. Light by 8:00am, Dark by 4:30 pm.

Even when it's sunny, it's not strong sunlight.

[Copsgirl73]

End of June, July, August and September are awesome. The rest of the year - cold, rainy, gray, cloudy, a little snow and ice (Jan/Feb/Mar) and then more rain until June. This is *pretty* typical weather, but then you can have the sort of weather we have had a few days ago where it was sunny and mid-70s/low 80s for almost 2 weeks. And this week its pouring rain and supposed to snow in higher elevations Memorial Day weekend.
Weather here is always changing