Nica's Blog

Seattle is a moderately rainy city, which makes it fine for me. I don't mind rain, and I usually enjoy it. I see people flinching under the rain like they are caught in a deluge of guano, and I feel sad they don't seem to enjoy rain; they don't even seem to want to enjoy the rain. People will enjoy the sunshine, even if it's making their skin peel and causing melanoma -- dammit they're going to enjoy the sunny days.

Seattle is not a very rainy city. Seattle gets a moderate amount of rain. Consider the average annual rainfalls of some well known cities:

London, 24.2 in
Paris, 24.1
Roma, 31.2
Toronto, 29.1
Seattle, 33.1
Tokyo, 60.0
Cairo, 1.0
Bangkok, 57.8
San Francisco, 19.6
Sydney Australia, 48.1
Baghdad, 6.1
Miami, 59.0
New Orleans, 59.8
Anchorage, 15.3
Grand Rapids, 201
New York City, 46.7

These numbers will vary depending on the source, but I don't think these numbers are skewed one way or the other. I was really surprised by how little I knew about rainfalls in various cities. I had no idea that San Francisco is so dry, and Grand Rapids is so wet. Baghdad is dry, no surprise, but Cairo is extraordinarily lacking in precipitation. No wonder the Nile is so important. All in all Seattle has a very middle-of-the-road sort of climate when it comes to rainfall. I was a little disappointed that London has so much less rain than Seattle. A rainy London has something of a romantic appeal to me.

Labels: rain