Originally Posted by duane041
But how bad is this 7 months of rain? We are debating this topic here between the two of us, and she constantly says "Which would you rather have-rain all winter, or 5 degrees all winter?"
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.......
Great point. Let's put it this way. Today is sprinkled for 5 minutes this morning. It warmed up to about 78 this afternoon and was glorious. Right now it's 8:45 pm and I'm sitting here with my windows open and it feels awesome. Before today it hadn't rained in probably at least a month. The "rainy season" is made up of rain about 3-5 out of every 7 days, but it's sporadic. By sporadic I mean it might rain for 20 days straight, but it might also be sunny for 2 weeks in the middle of winter. July through the end of September is usually awesome, and often it will extend a month before and after that period. It depends on the year and whether "El Nino" is paying a visit. When he does, Portland has a dry winter while California gets slammed, as shown this past winter.
If you check something like "Places Rated Almanac" or some other resource that "measures" climate, Portland is always in the top 25 for climate out of over 300 cities in America. It's mild, rarely snows (1-2 small storms/winter), has very few severe rain storms (the last really bad flood was 1996), and is rarely oppressively hot and/or humid for an extended period of time. Overall it's very comfortable.
All that being said, just prepare yourself to see more gray skies that what you might be used to, and buy one of those "gustbuster" umbrellas.
