Seattle weather forecast

Seattle has a reputation for almost perpetual rain nine months of the year. That's simply not true. There are occasional periods when it stops raining and is merely cloudy, or showers are intermittent.

As proof, I offer the current five-day forecast for the Seattle area:

Detailed Local Forecast

• Today: Cloudy with occasional rain showers. High 56F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
• Tonight: Rain showers early becoming a steady light rain overnight. Low 48F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.
• Tomorrow: Occasional rain tapering to a few showers late. High 51F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
• Tomorrow night: Scattered thunderstorms in the evening, then variable clouds overnight with more showers at times. Low 41F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
• Sunday: Chance of showers. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the low 40s.
• Monday: Showers. Highs in the mid 40s with temperatures nearly steady overnite.
• Tuesday: Chance of showers. Highs in the mid 40s and lows in the mid 30s.

[/tongue-in-cheek]
Yes - we do get a lot of days with rain from mid-October through mid-May.

We've been "unseasonably warm" the past week or so. Wednesday set a new record, with a high of 84º. "Normal" is about 67º this time of year. It will be down to the low 70's in a few days, and we may have "scattered showers," about 1/10th of an inch, on Sunday.

This is a great time of year to visit, even if the weather is normal.

Fern

How To Forecast Seattle Weather.

If you can see Mt. Ranier, that means it's going to rain.

If you can't see Mt. Ranier, that means it is raining.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

AwayWeGo said:

If you can see Mt. Ranier, that means it's going to rain.

If you can't see Mt. Ranier, that means it is raining.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

Click to expand...

"The Mountain is out today." is a Seattle euphemism for "It's a clear day." I suspect that in Portland the same expression might be heard, with reference to Mt. Hood.

I don't recall ever hearing the term "sun break" (as in "today there will be showers with scattered sun breaks") until moving to the Pacific Northwest. Buy hey, you don't have to shovel rain, so I'll take it.

On a related note, I grew up in the bitter cold and snowy midwest, and had never seen a tire chain until moving out here. Put one snow flurry in the air here, and everyone is chaining up. What's that all about?

-nodge

When I lived in Portland, we'd always joke that 30% chance of rain meant that it'd rain ~ 7 hours that day.

nodge said:

On a related note, I grew up in the bitter cold and snowy midwest, and had never seen a tire chain until moving out here. Put one snow flurry in the air here, and everyone is chaining up. What's that all about?

-nodge

Click to expand...

This is what it's about:

Portland drivers in the snow

I also grew up in the Midwest - Minneapolis. So I'm pretty familiar with driving on snow and ice. The hills in the northwest, though, make snow and ice much more treacherous. Combine that with many fewer drivers having experience with snow and ice, fewer snowplows, less sanding and salting of roads, and generally lesser capabilities for addressing snow and ice on roads. Makes for much more hazardous driving.

I avoid driving on snow and ice if I can, and I don't hesitate to chain up if I do need to go somewhere.

We just kind of let people think that Denver is a terribly cold, snowy place to live. The Monday Night football games are always great for that impression, too, because they always show the mountains with all the white stuff and it looks like the mountains are right by the stadium, so people look at that and think, "wow, Denver is such a cold, cold place."

But it has been in the 70's every day, pretty much. I wore shorts yesterday while I picked up leaves and pulled some weeds outside. It was absolutely perfect weather. Who can ask for more than that--shorts in the fall. Plus, we haven't even turned our furnace on yet, folks!

T_R_Oglodyte said:

This is what it's about:

Portland drivers in the snow

Click to expand...

I remember that day. I stayed home.

The thing about tire chains is that they may help you get up to speed, but they do essentially nothing to help you slow down on ice once you get there. Instead, they give drivers false confidence, which leads to stuff like what's on the video.

I maintain that, at least in urban areas, chains create more accidents than they prevent. If you wouldn't go out without chains, you shouldn't go out at all.

-nodge

That was a funny video. I was wondering why the driver wasn't taking responsibility by leaving a phone number and insurance info or something. Seemed a bit fake to me.

So can someone enlighten me as to how this person could go crashing into all these cars and not stop and exchange information with each victim? Was this edited to leave that out?

El Crasho Smasho.

nodge said:

The thing about tire chains is that they may help you get up to speed, but they do essentially nothing to help you slow down on ice once you get there. Instead, they give drivers false confidence, which leads to stuff like what's on the video.

I maintain that, at least in urban areas, chains create more accidents than they prevent. If you wouldn't go out without chains, you shouldn't go out at all.

Click to expand...

Ditto jeeps & SUVs & 4WDs & AWDs -- they go in snow & sometimes also on ice. But they don't stop 1 bit better than any other car or truck out there. Around here, lots of'm run off the road & get bent just about any time there's any snow or ice or slush.

I try to make it a point not to change the shape of my car when I'm driving. Most of the time I succeed.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

nodge said:

The thing about tire chains is that they may help you get up to speed, but they do essentially nothing to help you slow down on ice once you get there. Instead, they give drivers false confidence, which leads to stuff like what's on the video.

Click to expand...

That's not at all true. Chains give you much better traction on ice for starting, stopping, and turning. I have chained regularly and often, including with 4WD Jeep, and chains make a big difference.

On the other hand, 4WD is no different from 2WD when brakes are applied. IMHO - that is a big cause of accidents. Many drivers think that 4WD gives better traction in stopping as well as starting.

T_R_Oglodyte said:

That's not at all true. Chains give you much better traction on ice for starting, stopping, and turning. I have chained regularly and often, including with 4WD Jeep, and chains make a big difference.

Click to expand...

You sound pretty darned confident about that.

-nodge

rickandcindy23 said:

But it has been in the 70's every day, pretty much. I wore shorts yesterday while I picked up leaves and pulled some weeds outside. It was absolutely perfect weather. Who can ask for more than that--shorts in the fall. Plus, we haven't even turned our furnace on yet, folks!

Click to expand...

Now that I'm an Arizonan, 70's isn't shorts weather any more. Time for the jeans. The a/c is still going on, but now I turn off the fans and possibly wear a sweater...even though it's still in the 90's. Weird how the temp can still be high, but it just FEELS like fall.

nodge said:

You sound pretty darned confident about that.

-nodge

Click to expand...

Yep. I have driven quite a bit with chains and without chains, and I have observed often that you can stop a car on an icy hill with chains on the tires when snow tires fail. You learn that when you have a driveway that slopes downhill.

It's also basic physics., Braking (and accelerating) is directly related to the coefficient of friction between a the tire and the road. When you put chains on the tires, you increase the coefficient of friction.

That's why you can both get up to speed more quickly with chains, and stop more quickly with chains. If you are willing to grant that putting chains on helps a car get up to speed more quickly, then you should also grant that chains will stop a car more quickly. The physics involved is identical whether the car is braking or accelerating. In either case, the speed of the vehicle is changing because a frictional force is transmitted between the car and the road.

Lot's of people keep moving here even though the rains reports. The ads on the TV are saying 50/k people a year will be moving here for the next 20 years. It really doesn't rain as much as other cities. Take a look.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthrain.html

Rain

The link shows how much water falls in an area when it rains 1 inch - not the city that receives the most rain - or am I missing something?

Marsha

Skatduder said:

Lot's of people keep moving here even though the rains reports. The ads on the TV are saying 50/k people a year will be moving here for the next 20 years. It really doesn't rain as much as other cities. Take a look.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthrain.html

Click to expand...