[limaoscarjuliet]

I know a few folks who live in Seattle, and they all - at one point or another - attempted to convince me Seattle is not rainy. This alone is a proof Seattle is rainy enough.

On a more serious note, I agree it is about relatively little sun rather than amount of rain per se that builds this cloudy, rainy feeling in Seattle.

[timr]

Total volume of rain is fairly meaningless here. The rain in Seattle comes less as "rain", and more as a mist that never ends for 3/4ths of the year.

It's like standing under the vegetable misters at the grocery store if they turned out the lights.

[Tiktaalik]

The rain often comes at night too, so for much of the year you experience a feeling that it has just rained, and everything is wet, but it's not actively raining.

[WorldMaker]

A thing I learned in a random puzzle quest that stuck with me is that much of the PNW makes up North America's largest rainforest. We associate the term rainforest primarily with Tropical Rainforests and especially the Amazon Forest in South America, but the Pacific Northwest has and is a rainforest. Rainforests themselves are named that not for volume of rain that they have, but the consistent feeling of rain that they have. The forest itself helps build and maintain that constant "misting" water cycle that gives the feeling that it is consistently raining/has just rained/will still be raining for months at a time. That's an important part of the ecodiversity of the region, so it makes sense that it also becomes an important part of the human culture of the region (that reputation that "Seattle is always raining" despite having less rainfall than many other major US cities by volume and other metrics). But yeah, its always raining in the manner of a rainforest, not the manner of a squall or rainstorm.

[robonerd]

There are even boas in the PNW, albeit very small and cute ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_boa

[Tiktaalik]

yes absolutely! The region is a "Temperate Rainforest."

[bombcar]

Exactly, people call it "rainy" when it may not technically be raining.

Seattle has a very distinctive weather pattern, and it does NOT burn off like morning fog in other cities, even though it has some similarities to heavy fog.

[drewcoo]

> attempted to convince me Seattle is not rainy. This alone is a proof Seattle is rainy enough.

How is that proof? Do you expect all people eventually lie to you?

Seattle mists a lot, but rarely rains hard. Natives know better than to even own raincoats or umbrellas.

There was some old stat about highest sunglasses sales per capita in Seattle. That was because of unexpected sunbreaks.

[cafard]

Maybe because nobody ever bothered to try convince him that Yuma, Arizona, is not rainy.