If you’re a newcomer to the Southwest Washington, you’ve probably heard all about our soggy reputation.
And for a good part of the year, it’s well-deserved.
Bathed by marine air chugging in from the prevailing west-to-east jet stream, the Pacific Northwest generally benefits from the moderating influence of the Pacific Ocean. Vancouver’s average high temperature is 80 degrees in July and 45 degrees in January.
Snowfall is a notoriously iffy proposition on the west side of the Cascade Range.
“If it’s moist enough to snow, it’s too mild. And if it’s cold enough to snow, it’s too dry,” said George Taylor, a veteran forecaster with Applied Climate Services in Corvallis, Ore. “A little bit of moisture plus cold air just doesn’t happen that often.”
We do get plenty of cloud cover, though.
The Vancouver-Portland metro area gets cloudy or partly cloudy skies 296 days in an average year. That’s a stark contrast to the 300 days of sunshine in cities such as Yakima and Bend, Ore., which benefit from the fact that the Cascade mountains wring out most of the ocean-spawned moisture before it drifts east.