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The West Coast is unique in the US, particularly at the northern end. From Seattle, you can have a 10-1 ratio of annual rainfall within weekend-home range. Plus urban areas that average over 40 for winter highs vs. permanent glaciers.
The PNW coast is very different than the northeastern part of the country. The terrain from Oregon and Washington up into British Columbia is very similar to the terrain of Scandinavia with an inland sea and multiple glaciated mountain ranges in between. Much of it not really suitable for human development.
This might come as a surprise to some, but Seattle is actually one of the driest spots in Western Washington.
This might come as a surprise to some, but Seattle is actually one of the driest spots in Western Washington.
I feel for a vast majority of people the only major city they know in Washington is Seattle. I live in the state capitol (which has worse weather than Seattle) and I'm sure a lot of people couldn't even name it without looking it up. Anyway, as someone that grew up in New England and has also lived in NYC for a dozen+ years and has been out here in the PNW going on 5 years now it really depends on what you consider worse. My take:
PNW winters (strictly speaking of western Washington lowlands):
- Hovers just above freezing most of the time
- Snow is pretty rare and it often melts within a day. It also shuts most things down depending how much we get but in the northeast it would be laughable to shut stuff down for the amount we get here. That said, it's much more hilly out here and the snow melt could freeze and cars will be sliding all over the place and there isn't much in the way of infrastructure here to deal with snow since it's so uncommon and is just gone in a day so probably not worth investing in tbh.
- Overcast and/or raining majority of days. Toss in lots of foggy days to go with it.
- Sunny days are rare in winter and it's not uncommon to go weeks without ever seeing the sun but you can catch occasional "sunbreaks" if you're lucky.
Northeast winters (NYC and New England region):
- A fair bit colder depending how far north you are. NYC isn't really too cold in winter tbh.
- Snow. You'll get a lot more of it in the northeast but depending where you are it might not stick around for long.
- Sun. You will get much more sun in winter in the northeast region.
- Infrastructure. The northeast has much better infrastructure to deal with snowfall than the PNW. 2" of snow in the northeast is nothing and kids will still go to school and adults will go to work. Here in the PNW 2" would shut everything down completely.
Last edited by fluffydelusions; 01-17-2021 at 01:58 PM..
I feel for a vast majority of people the only major city they know in Washington is Seattle. I live in the state capitol (which has worse weather than Seattle) and I'm sure a lot of people couldn't even name it without looking it up. Anyway, as someone that grew up in New England and has also lived in NYC for a dozen+ years and has been out here in the PNW going on 5 years now it really depends on what you consider worse. My take:
PNW winters (strictly speaking of western Washington lowlands):
- Hovers just above freezing most of the time
- Snow is pretty rare and it often melts within a day. It also shuts most things down depending how much we get but in the northeast it would be laughable to shut stuff down for the amount we get here. That said, it's much more hilly out here and the snow melt could freeze and cars will be sliding all over the place and there isn't much in the way of infrastructure here to deal with snow since it's so uncommon and is just gone in a day so probably not worth investing in tbh.
- Overcast and/or raining majority of days. Toss in lots of foggy days to go with it.
- Sunny days are rare in winter and it's not uncommon to go weeks without ever seeing the sun but you can catch occasional "sunbreaks" if you're lucky.
Northeast winters (NYC and New England region):
- A fair bit colder depending how far north you are. NYC isn't really too cold in winter tbh.
- Snow. You'll get a lot more of it in the northeast but depending where you are it might not stick around for long.
- Sun. You will get much more sun in winter in the northeast region.
- Infrastructure. The northeast has much better infrastructure to deal with snowfall than the PNW. 2" of snow in the northeast is nothing and kids will still go to school and adults will go to work. Here in the PNW 2" would shut everything down completely.
Yes Olympia sees a lot of fog for some reason, but the further north you go, fog becomes a lot more rare. I think even Lacey has more sun than Olympia.
Yes Olympia sees a lot of fog for some reason, but the further north you go, fog becomes a lot more rare. I think even Lacey has more sun than Olympia.
Yeah it's foggy today even. Wish there was sunshine data for Olympia. I'd be interested in seeing how it compares to Seattle, Bellingham, and Forks(the only places in the westside of the state we have data for). Seems crazy there isn't given it's the capital of the state.
Last edited by fluffydelusions; 01-18-2021 at 10:37 AM..
Yeah it's foggy today even. Wish there was sunshine data for Olympia. I'd be interested in seeing how it compares to Seattle, Bellingham, and Forks(the only places in the westside of the state we have data for). Seems crazy there isn't given it's the capital of the state.
Tacoma also has sunshine data, it has 2,167 hrs of sunshine. Darkest month is November with 60 hours.
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