I know, talking about the weather is cliche but....

It's one of those days here: rainy when I go into work, rainy when I leave work. The only enjoyable thing is sitting in my window and watching other people out in the rain while I'm finally inside and dry. I know every person who moves here complains about the weather; it's inevitable that we all whine. However, my point is not that the weather sucks (because sometimes it doesn't) it's that every time I start to complain about a particularly vicious spat of wind or cold or hail, I get the same response from the people who grew up here:

"The weather is NEVER like this."

One day, after hearing this phrase yet again, I happened to mention it to a fellow transplant.  Turns out, she'd heard the same thing from other people! The more I asked around, the more I found that different variations of this phrase show up whenever a transplant is nearby talking about the climate.

Being the analytic that I am, I have deduced the following: bad weather in Seattle is not normal. I don't know what we did when we moved to this region but obviously our presence here has turned Mother Nature against us. In light of this revelation, I suggest that next time you are confronted with bad weather and the phrase, you go ahead and make the necessary mea culpa and try to move on with your day. It won’t be easy but obviously, if you just wait it out, you’ll never again see a drop of snow in the lowlands.

Right…. So now that we’ve pacified the natives, let’s talk seriously.

Since I have officially made it through my third Seattle winter, I want to ask the question, "What is normal weather for Seattle?"

According to the City of Seattle website’s visitors guide (http://www.cityofseattle.net/html/visitor/weather.htm), “On average, it rains in Seattle at least 50% of the time, with the heaviest rain periods between January and May and between October and December. June, July and August are our driest and warmest months.” So basically, they’re saying it rains from October to May.

From my experience, in the fall, wind storms are pretty common. They just vary on how much damage they cause but we lose power often. It seems fairly normal in the winter for it to snow in the lowlands a few times though it’s rather rare for it to stick for any real amount of time. However, when it does, there’s major havoc. If it’s not snowing, it’s raining pretty constantly and the cloud cover is thick. It never fails that the beginning of spring is still cold and rainy (especially Easter) but we get longer periods of warmer temperatures. This is pretty cruel due to the fact that it almost always reverts back to bone chilling cold. Not fair.

However, summer, is the most beautiful time of the year. It stays light until all hours and it’s warm and breezy. The jury’s still out as to whether last year’s freak heat wave (topping out at 104 degrees I believe for multiple days) will be a repetitive event but I’m hoping, for the sake of everyone who only has heat, that it was a one time thing.

So there’s my take on it. I am not going to pretend to know what’s normal around here. I’m sure that we’ll continue to see random weather events. People will say they’ll never happen again…but they will. You might as well get used to it.

Umbrellas vs. Raincoats

One of the common things I hear from people who grew up here is that true Seattleites don't carry umbrellas. This seemed strange considering how often it rains here so I started asking the question, "If you don't carry an umbrella, how do you stay dry?"

What I've found is that it comes down to this: raincoats.

So, ok, I can understand that. There are some very good points for this mode of jacket. A lot of times, it doesn't exactly...rain... It's more like walking in a cloud of mist (this is the type of rain  that makes it so hard to drive, but that's another topic). So when the rain's not really falling, it's more 100 % humidity, a raincoat seems like an ideal choice right??

Not quite. Typical raincoats I see around here only come down to your waist. So what about your pants? And for that matter, what about my purse? It's not going to stay dry while walking in the rain (and no, waterproof purses are not ok so don't even go there).

Despite all my complaints above, I'll admit that I bought into the idea and got myself a rain jacket. I spent a long time looking around and I had three basic criteria:
1) Must be 100% waterproof (otherwise, what's the point?)
2) Must not make me look like a shapeless blob
3) Must not be khaki, black, navy blue or dark green

You'd be surprised how difficult that was. Criteria #3 pared the selection down quite a bit but criteria #2 turned out to be the hardest to fulfill. A guy at an outdoor store showed me their "best selling rain jacket!" which was from a well known brand. I turned it around and looked at the seams on the back. They went straight down, no tailoring whatsoever. I couldn't believe so many people were willing to wear this jacket. I ended up finding a nice bright blue jacket with a moderate amount of tailoring but it still isn't something I'm itching to wear all the time.

My coat of choice for the rain now is a wool coat with a hood. I found this while shopping during the Christmas season and it is amazing. Wool is obviously not waterproof but unless you're walking long distances, it's not going to soak through. The hood is made of wool too so it's extremely warm when I put it up and it's heavy enough that it doesn't fall off if it's caught by the wind. Plus it's flatteringly cut, a very pretty color and it doesn't make noise when I walk! I know this isn't easy to find though so I'd recommend getting the same effect by layering a hoodie with a wool coat.

So don't lay down your umbrella just because people would like you to think "it's what we do". It's a tried and true tool to combat the rain, use it! You'll be the one whose hairstyle and MP3 player are all still nice and dry when you walk in the door.