80% chance of rain in Seattle
The forecast today calls for an 80% chance of rain. Traditionally this means that 80% of the time it will rain, but that there’s a 20% chance it won’t rain at all. Here in Seattle we interpret those numbers a little differently.
In Seattle, when the forecast says 80% chance of rain that means if you ask a random sampling of 100 people on the street “is it raining right now?” 80 of them will say “yeah, it’s raining” and 20 of them will say “no, this isn’t rain.” For those of you who haven’t ever been in Seattle in the Winter, it’s never quite dry here. And it rarely actually rains either — real rain with lots of big heavy drops. We tend to have this persistent heavy fog that moves downward and gets things wet. Sometimes it’s lighter and sometimes it’s heavier — it’s pretty arbitrary when you’d call it rain and when you wouldn’t. Thus the consensus model.
Right now I’d actually say we’ve got about a 60% chance of rain. 80% is pretty darned heavy IMHO. I don’t think it’s possible to get over about 98% chance of rain because some transplanted diehards from monsoon territory will always hold out and say “this ain’t real rain” as their goretex hats turn into buckets. Likewise, in Winter I suspect the minimum chance of rain is about 5%, owing to the bitter so-cal transplants who whine that it’s always raining here, regardless of what’s happening in the sky.
So grab a double-tall skinny hazelnut latte and hunker down by the fireplace for a few months. Here’s looking forward to snowboarding!