Anyone else in Washington? (Lacey, Sequim: theater, live, restaurants)

[klpeake]

Originally Posted by KidBlue

Can you share some of the sites you used to do your research on faults?

USGS.gov (there is a ton of info here, you just have to start digging)
wikipedia (historical data and definitions)
Clark County GIS maps online system (to check which parts of the county have problems with liquifaction and which parts are on bedrock)
www.ess.washington.edu
www.mala.bc.ca/~earles/silent-slip-may01.htm
www.pnsn.org

PDFs: (do a Google search for the titles)
-Strain monitoring at the bend in the cascadia subduction zone
-A new view into the Cascadia subduction zone and volcanic arc: ...

Hope this helps.

[NWLambear]

Originally Posted by Alcon

Any other folks out there in the Evergreen State? If so, where?

Enjoy reading the questions and comments from those relocating from California (Alpine...which was east of San Diego) to Washington. We don't miss California at all!! My husband and I made the move 3 years ago after much research. Since we were retiring and our children are all grown, employment and schools were not an issue. We focused on taxes, medical care, weather, locations of military facilities primarily. We actually worked our way through the research from south of Seattle all the way up to the upper most corner of the NW. We viewed historial data on rain and flooding. This primarily brought us up to the Bellingham general area. We wanted some land and trees and were lucky enough to find just the right size little (small)house on almost 5 acres in Ferndale. We are just south of the Canadian border, east of the water, west of the moutains (Mt. Baker), an easy 1.5 hours drive once a month to military facilities (for commissary and exchange shopping, and pick of medications). This is where we are going to stay....and just travel to visit family (CA, FL, VA, DE, PA, CT) and see other sites we want to visit. We have enjoy several mild winters, plenty of sunshine...and, of course, our share of overcast days and rain. Our weather here in Bellingham/Ferndale is a lot different than the weather you will find as you go south in Washington.

[mitchmountain]

I do know that if you have kids it is a great idea to move to a better place before they are old enough to refuse to go!

[joe burton]

Once lived there...
Looking for some on across the bridge from Tacoma in Gig Harbor..
do you know many people in that town?

[DreamWeavin]

Originally Posted by sugarrush

There isn't a lot of talk about Gig Harbor. Is there something I should know before moving there?

I was/am interested in Gig Harbor as well. Feedback would be nice.

[lstyles]

We visited northern Washington recently--Sequim, Pt. Townsend, Pt. Angeles. It was wonderful but I'm wondering if what they say is true about being in the rain shadow and not receiving that much rain. Have heard the term 'Sunny Sequim' quite a bit. In my favorites, I've got some web cams for the whole area. Was this past month's storm/snow typical? What's the real truth? Don't think I could live without sun... Any input? P.S., I'm coming from sunny California--Santa Cruz.

[RodFarlee]

Originally Posted by lstyles

We visited northern Washington recently--Sequim, Pt. Townsend, Pt. Angeles. It was wonderful but I'm wondering if what they say is true about being in the rain shadow and not receiving that much rain. Have heard the term 'Sunny Sequim' quite a bit... Don't think I could live without sun... Any input? P.S., I'm coming from sunny California--Santa Cruz.

Less rain, certainly. Sequim 16 inches/year, Port Townsend 19, Port Angeles 26, Seattle 37, Santa Cruz 31. In terms of rainfall, Carmel is the nearest point on the Pacific Coast that's as dry as Sequim.

More sun, relative to Seattle, but not to Santa Cruz.

The National Weather Service records sunshine by classifying each day as clear (0 to 3/10 cloud cover), partly cloudy (4 to 7/10 cloud cover), or cloudy (over 7/10 cloud cover. At a few major cities, the NWS actually records the hours of sunshine, but not at the small towns you're asking asking about, though, not even Santa Cruz.

There is a private weather station here in Sequim which does record sunshine.
http://www.SEQUIM.com/cgi-bin/new_weather.pl
A caveat is that I can't vouch for the accuracy of their data; it's a photocell that detects a difference between direct sun and shadow, and may register some rather pale sun that just barely produces an observable shadow. Anyway, I downloaded the last eleven years of daily records and sorted them in Excel. Here's the percentage of days that have at least N hours of sunshine:
12 hrs 2% of days
10 hrs 9%
8 hrs 23%
6 hrs 44%
4 hrs 67%
2 hrs 87%
Another way of summarizing this is that the median day has 5.4 hours of sunshine (half have more, half less).

Translated into NWS categories, that's about 84 clear days, 118 partly cloudy and 162 cloudy days per year.

The NWS Sea-Tac airport climate average is 58 days clear, 82 days partly cloudy, and 226 days cloudy, for a year-round average 47% of possible sunshine.

The NWS doesn't report this for Santa Cruz, but San Francisco averages 160 days clear, 99 party cloudy, 105 cloudy, and gets 66% of possible sunshine.

So Sequim is sunnier than Seattle, but is nothing close to Santa Cruz.

Originally Posted by lstyles

Was this past month's storm/snow typical? What's the real truth?

Last week's snowfall in Sequim was 6 inches, up to 10 inches outside Port Angeles. Power was out for days in some areas.

It's not typical... the average snowfall is 2.4 inches and average annual total is 5.6 inches. I think it is the highest November snowfall on record, but sure isn't the highest winter snowfall ever. It's roughly a "once in ten years" event.

The flip side of the rain shadow (which is produced by the prevailing southwesterly wind) is that when winter storms come from the north, as this one did, we get more than our share!

Data from Western Regional Climate Center http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/

[zenfull]

Originally Posted by lstyles

We visited northern Washington recently--Sequim, Pt. Townsend, Pt. Angeles. It was wonderful but I'm wondering if what they say is true about being in the rain shadow and not receiving that much rain. Have heard the term 'Sunny Sequim' quite a bit. In my favorites, I've got some web cams for the whole area. Was this past month's storm/snow typical? What's the real truth? Don't think I could live without sun... Any input? P.S., I'm coming from sunny California--Santa Cruz.

Hi,
We've lived in Santa Cruz before .Just moved here (Port Townsend) from Southern Oregon where we usually got an average of 35" to 40"rain. We've been in Port Townsend for over a year now & it definitely gets less rain than Oregon.About the same amount as a wet winter in Santa Cruz though. The snow here last week was beautiful & rare they say(at least the amount of it).I can say this the gloom factor (too many overcast days in winter) is not an issue for us. The Paper Mill is though. We thought it wouldn't bother us that much but when it is bad it is awful.We will be moving further north in the Spring.

[7.3 Liters]

Originally Posted by lstyles

We visited northern Washington recently--Sequim, Pt. Townsend, Pt. Angeles. It was wonderful but I'm wondering if what they say is true about being in the rain shadow and not receiving that much rain. Have heard the term 'Sunny Sequim' quite a bit. In my favorites, I've got some web cams for the whole area. Was this past month's storm/snow typical? What's the real truth? Don't think I could live without sun... Any input? P.S., I'm coming from sunny California--Santa Cruz.

Hello,
We left sunny California about a year ago--Ventura--and love it here. We are in Leavenworth where you actually get four seasons, quite a bit different from the storm, wind, fire, and mudslide seasons down there. To see the trees change color then get dusted with snow is fantastic! Coastal Wash. is just too damp.

[Kathleenh54]

We moved from Ventura County to Ashland, Oregon this past summer. One daughter is happily ensconsed in high school here and the other is heading to Everett, WA to go to college. We have been pleased with Ashland but find it to be a fairly narrow-minded and unwelcoming community. Outsiders are viewed as something less than contagious lepers, especially 'rich' retirees (even though I'm a NY native and husband is from UK). When our youngest finishes high school we will probably leave Ashland and have our eye on the San Juan islands. Whaddya think?