At 10:44 PM 9/25/1999 +0100, Jeff Winchell wrote:
>Just to mess things up<s>, Seattle's actually much drier.
>There are only 4 months (Nov-Feb) a year when there are more inches
>of rain in Seattle than Topeka has in August and September. Oh well, so
>much for popular perceptions.
>
As an ex Pacific NorthWET resident whose family still lives there, the
biggest difference with Seattle rain is that it, ON AVERAGE, tends to be
small amounts (drizzle, etc) frequently spread over many hours and days.
One winter when I lived there we literally had 40 days of "measureable
precipitation" which after a day or so was followed by another 10 or 20.
Other parts of the country tend to either have fewer rainy days and/or
fewer rainy hours on those days. I don't think I've ever visited Seattle in
the 26 years since I moved where it didn't rain either during the few days
I was there or, best case, stopped raining just before I got there or
started again just after I left :-). Fortunately, the Northwest with all
the evergreens and mountains, etc. really looks good even when it is
raining. Most places are just dreary in the rain. Seattle is still very
nice. Jeff is right though, it is too crowded! Really a great place to
live, but I probably would not be driving a Formula Ford and towing it on
an open trailer if I lived there now!
Fortunately the east coast, especially the southeast is not a contender for
a Nationals site. Between two hurricanes (Dennis while we were home and
Floyd while we were in Kansas) my neighborhood in Raleigh, NC got an
official 15 inches and our rain gauges showed over 20 inches (our drought
is over and we, fortunately are not in the flood area. The first storm gave
us 10 inches from Saturday noon until Monday AM (i.e. NOT a drizzle).
It is common for NC to have a thunderstorm blow thru and the wet pavement
time is an hour (the "wet people" time can be much longer if you have to be
out in the rain:-). Fortunately for autocrossing the most common time for
the storms is the late afternoon or early evening due to the effect of the
daytime heating and therefore is somewhat less likely to impact an autocross.
Lets not start a long "my weather is better (or worse) than your weather
thread. (so why did I write this when I should be working on improvements
to my race car . . . .). Anybody who has lived there knows that the
consistently best weather (lack of rain or humidity and relatively mild
temperatures year round) for autocrossing in the continental US is in
California . . . Except when a Tour or Pro is scheduled it seems:-)
Dick Rasmussen
CM 85
85 Van Diemen RF-85 Formula Ford
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