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Region’s rainy reputation ignores stellar summers

By Erik Robinson
Published: February 27, 2011, 12:00am
3 Photos
A pedestrian shields himself against the rain while crossing a street in downtown Vancouver.
A pedestrian shields himself against the rain while crossing a street in downtown Vancouver. Despite our soggy reputation, America's Vancouver actually gets less rain than Boston, Atlanta or Miami. Photo Gallery

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.

Rainfall here tends to be slow and steady.

A scientist leading a tour around Mount St. Helens once described the region’s verdant landscape as a function of the slow-drip soaker hose found in a greenhouse, as opposed to the firehose gushers typical of other areas of the country.

No doubt about it — we live in a wet climate.

But here’s our little secret: For roughly three months beginning around the Fourth of July, you’d be hard-pressed to find better weather anywhere.

With the jet stream drifting north across Canada, summertime in Western Washington and Oregon tends to be sunny without becoming overly muggy. At not quite 42 inches a year, Vancouver actually gets less rain than Boston, Atlanta or Miami.

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