Rain, snow Seattle vs. Olympia vs. Bremerton (Bellevue, Redmond: where to live, statistics)

[Samoi137]

Weather.com shows Bremerton with substantially more rain than Seattle in the winter, and Olympia between the two. But averages can be misleading. What about number of cloudy vs. sunny days throughout the year? Thanks.

[Hemlock140]

It varies too much to put a number on it, but the Hood Canal region, which includes Bremerton, seems to suck in moisture and have more rain and snow than other areas. Despite being farther south, Olympia gets colder than Seattle, which has more of a marine influence. Of the 3 places the difference is not enough to affect where to live much. Whether it's 37" or 40" of rain a year, it's still a lot.

[jdoyle5]

Bremerton is always rainy. Well, not ALWAYS but close. You don't want to live there anyhow. My brother lives in Olympia and they seem to get colder than we do in Seattle. If it's 41 here, it's 34 there. That kind of thing. They may get more precipitation than seattle too. There are areas in seattle that are less rainy as well. I lived in West Seattle for 10 years and I swear we got less rain there than the eastside (Bellevue, Redmond, etc.) area.

[Inkpoe]

Originally Posted by jdoyle5

Bremerton is always rainy. Well, not ALWAYS but close. You don't want to live there anyhow. My brother lives in Olympia and they seem to get colder than we do in Seattle. If it's 41 here, it's 34 there. That kind of thing. They may get more precipitation than seattle too. There are areas in seattle that are less rainy as well. I lived in West Seattle for 10 years and I swear we got less rain there than the eastside (Bellevue, Redmond, etc.) area.

That's because you do get more in the Eastside. Granted, its only a couple more inches. Its the rain shadow effect.

But yes, Seattle gets about 37 inches of rain annually while Olympia gets around 51 inches.

[GlossyCPA]

It also depends where in the Olympia area you live. It seems that it rains more in south Olympia, Tumwater and south of both of these. This year, we had only snow once (I live in Tumwater). The ground was covered with snow and my wheels were spinning. But when I went to work (I work in the Hawks Prairie area, it's about 7 miles north of Tumwater) there was hardly any snow at all.

[Count David]

Statistically, Olympia gets the most snow out of the three.

[lady fern]

I would agree with David. Can't really comment on Bremerton, but whenever Oly would be getting pounded with snow I would turn on the news and see the anchors going on and on about the 2 inches in Seattle. We always beat them in snow.
Of course none of the totals really matters all that much. Any time it snows it is gone quickly...longest I can remember is maybe a week on the ground. All of western Washington gets a lot of rain. At some point I am not sure you can really tell a difference in the amount of precipitation.

[poopskooper]

I also think it depends on where you are in a given city. I stay in unincorporated Thurston County and have an Olympia address. This location in "Olympia" gets very little snow when other parts of the city itself get hit. I believe the official weather station for Olympia is the Olympia Regional Airport (OLM) which is actually south of Tumwater. The weather station often has snow when I don't. And, as anywhere in western Washington, elevation is a factor in the equation too.

I didn't realize that this thread's OP is the same OP in the thread about Port Orchard so I will repeat my opinion, and it's only my opinion, that the weather differences between the locations mentioned in this thread will be negligible and I truly do not believe that the average person will be able to perceive the differences as they will be subtle and also, as mentioned, will even vary within a given city or that city's surrounding areas.

So my opinion still stands as any given area in any given shaded area on this map --click here-- will not be that much different from location to location.

But back to the OP's original question of cloudy days vs. number of sunny days during the year, I believe the same principle will apply. Sure, there will be differences but those differences will not be drastic enough (again, in those shaded areas) to be perceptible to the average person unless they are paying very close attention to the statistics at any given time on an ongoing basis.

We may as well use the City-Data.com graphs from their respective city's reference pages to illustrate the actual statistical data:


Seattle:






Olympia:





Bremerton:





Even scrutinizing these graphs, I believe one can conclude that there may not be that much of a difference between the locations. I truly believe the differences are so subtle and the statistics misleading enough to not base any decisions on relocating to one area over another just on weather alone.

Please understand, this is JMO and my opinion doesn't mean much. Many will disagree so take it with a grain of salt.

[ukiyo-e]

In Port Townsend, where I live, we get a lot of cloudy days even though we only get 19" of rain a year. Really, when it's overcast like this, I really don't care much if it's drizzly, too. I think the lack of sunshine is a more important weather factor than the amount of rain. I grew up on the east coast and my hometown got about 45" of rain a year, but it also had many sunny days, so the rain wasn't as depressing as it would be for some people here in Western Washington.