Rain Culture -- Sprinkle Of Images, Drizzle Of Facts, Downpour Of Musings, Jokes And Quotes Show How Much Rain Has Become A Part Of Our Lives

"Seattle is a moisturizing pad disguised as a city."

- Jerry Seinfeld, comedian.

The rain is coming.

Already the days are shorter, the air more crisp and each sunny morning that burns through the blanket of gray comes as a surprise. We see the clouds gathering and wonder if we've crossed the threshold into that long, wet season.

When the sunshine reappears, we rejoice in our good fortune, but guard against expecting more. We know the sun will not last, it cannot last. And when the rain comes, it will be here for a long, long time.

Here then, in anticipation of the rainy season, is a sprinkle of images by local artists and photographers, a drizzle of facts and trivia, and a downpour of musings, jokes and stumbled-upon quotes, that show just how much rain is a part of our lives.

Rain Talk

Ann Rule, author of best-selling books about sensational murders and cold-blooded killers, had this to say about the link between weather and her work, and between rain and the criminal mind.

"I love the rain. When I worked at the crisis clinics, I never thought that it was the rain that made people more depressed. We got more calls in spring when the weather is so perfect that people think they had to be happy. But if it was raining, it was OK because it fit in with their mood.

"I don't think there's a link between criminal mind and weather. Ted Bundy got most of his people on really nice nights. When I go and lecture, everyone is always asking, `what's wrong with you people in the Northwest?' But really, we don't have any more psychopaths and killers. What we have is a lot of true-crime writers because we like to write in the rain. So our killers get more attention. My very best work comes when the rain is just pounding down.

"Writing and rainfall just seem to go together. Look at how many creative people live in this area. This is perfect climate for creating. Because it's cozy. It's not that I feel trapped indoors by the rain. It just seems perfectly right. Although I guess if it were sunny I would feel a little more deprived, because of the party line that we should be cavorting in sunshine.

"I lived in L.A. for eight months. I wrote a screenplay but it was miserable because I was in a hot little office, and I did not feel one bit creative. Here, my writing room has a window that looks out to the Sound and there's a skylight over my head. I added the skylight three years ago. I couldn't see the rain. It was essential for me to see and hear the rain."

Clifford Burke, in his book, "Seattle: Rainy Day Guide," wrote:

"Much of Seattle's weather is rain threatening, not actually falling. And much of the rain that falls is gentle, kind of a vertical fog."

William Elston, a painter widely known for his Seattle's landscapes.

"Rain affects my work in a couple of ways: First of all, it affects the quality of light. The rain and the amount of moisture in the air creates some poetic effects. It adds mystery. Paul Havas (another local landscape painter) and I go out to a farm in Carnation to paint sometimes. Subtle shifts in moisture changes the aerial perspective and the depths you can see. If there's a clear day with little humidity everything seems more present and right there. If you have a lot of moisture things in distance look a lot bluer. With more moisture the sense of distance and mystery is telescoped and that can change subtly throughout the day. It's something the painter responds to."

"If you paint outdoors, it's not much fun to paint in the rain, which is why you don't see a lot of rainy day paintings. But I like to paint after the rain. The weather here changes so much, and that makes it difficult. Painting is an attempt to capture a still moment, but that still moment has to remain still for a long time. The weather is really both an advantage and a disadvantage. It makes the logistics difficult, but it gives you a wider variety of moods to choose from.

"Santa Fe paintings, for example, look beautiful, but they're static. It's the same palette of moods. I've lived in New York, Boston and San Francisco and I grew up in Spokane. It's way more interesting here for landscape painters because of the variety and the lay of the land is more peculiar, because of the Sound and the hills. In paintings of New York, the city is usually cavernous, monumental and somewhat inhumane. Seattle, for an urban landscapist like me, offers the potential for broader perspectives.

"Finally, the weather also affects mood. There's a certain kind of indefinable quality. The air is usually cleaner and there's an emotional exhilaration after the rain."

From "The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest" by Timothy Egan, a reporter for The New York Times.

"Now, with skin cancer and global warming, the sun is losing favor. On top of every other growth concern, even the Seattle drizzle has become fashionable, as good for the skin as a daily facial."

Grandma Fay was one of the passengers on the ship that dropped off the first group of white settlers at Alki in 1851. She continued to Olympia, and her writings about the first settlers' encounter with the inclement weather later appeared in Roberta Frye Watt's 1931 book, "Four Wagons West" including this excerpt:

"I can't never forget when the folks landed at Alki Point. I was sorry for Mrs. Denny with her baby and the rest of the women. You see, it was this way. Mr. Alexander and me went on to Olympia, but the rest stopped there. I remember it rained awful hard that last day - and the starch got took out of our bonnets and the wind blew, and when the women got into the rowboat to go ashore they were crying every one of `em, and their sun bonnets with the starch took out of them went flip flap, flip flap, as they rowed off for shore and the last glimpse I had of them was the women standing under the trees with their wet bonnets all lopping down over their faces and their aprons to the eyes."

Tom Robbins, author of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and other books, gave this explanation for why he lives in the Northwest in "Edge Walking on the Western Rim," a collection of essays by Northwest writers:

"I'm here for the weather.

"In the deepest, darkest heart of winter, when the sky resembles bad banana baby food for months on end, and the witch measles that meteorologists call `drizzle' are a chronic gray rash on the skin of the land, folks all around me sink into a dismal funk. Many are depressed, a few actually suicidal. But I, I grow happier with each fresh storm, each thickening of the crinkly stratocumulus. "What's so hot about the sun?' I ask. Sunbeams are a lot like tourists: intruding where they don't belong, little cameras slung around their necks. Raindrops, on the other hand, introverted, feral, buddhistically cool, behave as if they live here. Which, of course, they do."

E.B. White, author of "Elements of Style" and "Charlotte's Web," lived in Seattle as a young man before heading East.

"The days here are full of mist from Puget Sound and of depression. I find it hard to keep cheerful."

Andy Wappler , son of Harry, is the second-generation weatherman. He works with his father at KIRO-TV.

"Like all kids, I had to listen to my father talk about the weather more than I would have chosen to. I think we have a greater variety here than most people give us credit for. People who live here are rain connoisseurs. They know their drizzle from their rain from their showers. (Rain is steady precipitation. Shower is brief and intense. Drizzle is very fine light rain.) And they want to know how much rain is going to fall.

"Interestingly enough, the biggest hazard of talking about rain on television is not being positive enough about it. If you mention rain in a negative light, you can be sure you'll get calls from people telling you, `don't you know rain is good?' You really have to be careful about saying that dry is good and wet is bad. Each side has its own fans.

"I really like rain. Maybe you have to have lived here a while to feel that way, but I always enjoy it. It reminds me of being a kid, waiting at the bus stop. The rain, the fall feeling, the smell of the evergreens, the low clouds that you just don't see anywhere. It really gives you a sense of what it's like to live here. I like October, November and December quite a lot; it's a really unique time here. Sometime in the middle of January I start wishing for a turnaround in a big way.

"It's a challenge to talk about rain when your five-day forecast charts all have the same falling raindrops. But talking about rain here can't be any harder than being a weatherman in Los Angeles and having to talk about how sunny it is."

Rain City Trivia:

The rainfall calendar starts Oct. 1. and continues to Sept. 30. Since the start of the current rain year, Seattle has received 38.7 inches of rain.

The average total annual rainfall for Seattle: 37 inches

Other cities and their averages:

Mobile: 64

Miami: 56

New York: 42

Atlanta: 49

Boston: 44

Spokane: 16

Portland: 36

(Based on the records for a 30-year-period, 1961-1990 compiled by the National Climactic Data Center)

Number of clear days/cloudy days/days with precipitation of .01 inches or more/days with snow or sleet: Seattle: 82 / 201 / 137 / 1 Mobile: 104 / 152 / 124 / 1 New York: 104 / 151 / 112 / 8 Miami: 54 / 118 / 126 / 0 Atlanta: 123 / 144 / 104 / 2 Spokane: 88 / 204 / 109 / 11 Portland: 66 / 222 / 134 / 2 Boston: 87 / 162 / 134 / 19

Wettest spot in the U.S.: Mount Waialeale, Hawaii.: averages 460 inches annually. It also rains there every day of the year.

Seattle's distance from the wettest spot in the contiguous U.S.: Quillayute, about 100 miles away, gets an average annual rainfall of about 150 inches.

Wettest spot on Earth: Tutunendo, Colombia, which gets an average annual rainfall of 463.4 inches.

Speed of rainfall: 600 feet per minute or about 7 miles per hour

Average size of raindrops: 0.08 inches in diameter. If a drop is larger than 0.25 inches, it will eventually divide into two.

Chance of a dry day in January: 60 percent

Chance of a sunny day in January: 26 percent

Chance of a dry day in July: 93 percent

Chance of a sunny day in July: 71 percent.

Wettest month: December: 6.0 inches (followed by November: 5.7; and January: 5.4, based on 30-year records)

Driest month: July with an average of 0.9 inch of precipitation.

When Places Rated Almanac looked at 101 metropolitan areas and ranked them according to the mildness of their climate, how did Seattle do?

It ranked 15, beating out Honolulu, New York, Boston and Miami.

Rain City Businesses

Rain City Video

Rain City Publishing

Rain City Pub & Grill

Rain City Management

Rain City Graphix

Rain City Massage Therapy

Rain for Rent Rental Tank Division

Rain Industries

Rain or Shine Gutter Cleaning

Rain Shield Roofing

Rainbow Auto Clinic

Raincity Pictures

Raindrops Gallery

Raining Cats and Dogs Gifts and Supplies

Rainproof Roofing

Rainsound Inc.

RainTown Biotech

Rainy City Jazz Band

Rainy City Striping Co.

Rainy Day Books

Rainy Day Cafe

Rainy Day Cleaning Center

Rainy Day Inc.

Rainy Pass Repair

Drizzle Dazzle Inc.

Top 10 Rain Jokes

(Courtesy of local jokesters Michelle Beaudry, Ron Reid and Elliot Maxx. Maxx is the author of "The Seattle Joke Book III," which dedicates an entire chapter to rain material.)

What do you call two straight days of rain in Seattle?

A weekend.

What do you call four straight days of rain in Seattle?

Bumbershoot

What do you call two weeks of rain in Seattle?

Indian summer.

What did the Seattle native say to the Pillsbury Doughboy?

Nice tan.

A newcomer to Seattle arrives on a rainy day. He gets up the next day and it's raining. It also rains the day after that, and the day after that. He goes out to lunch and sees a young kid and asks out of despair. "Hey kid, does it ever stop raining around here?" The kid says, "How do I know? I'm only 6."

What's the definition of a Seattle optimist?

A guy with a sun visor on his rain hat.

Meteorological experts predicted a massive flood that would destroy the world. The pope went on worldwide TV and said, "This is punishment from God. Prepare to meet your maker." The president went on TV and announced, "Our scientists have done all they can. The end is near."

The mayor of Seattle came on and said, "Due to inclement weather, this year's Seafair Parade will be moved to the top of Queen Anne Hill."

"I can't believe it," said the tourist. "I've been here an entire week and it's done nothing but rain. When do you have summer here?

"Well, that's hard to say," replied the local. "Last year, it was on a Wednesday."

What does daylight-saving time mean in Seattle?

An extra hour of rain.

It only rains twice a year in Seattle: August to April and May to July.

Rain Everywhere

A popular postcard sold at Pike Place Market and most tourist shops reads: "A Summer day in Seattle. A Fall day in Seattle. A Winter Day in Seattle. A Spring day in Seattle." The rest of the card is a layer of light gray, melting into dark gray.

"I think there's such a thing as spirit of place. Some people think because of the rain that Seattle is moody. But I think I'm moody, so it fits me perfectly." - Charles Johnson, University of Washington professor and 1990 National Book Award winner.

Seattle's Best Coffee's umbrella reads: "It's pouring in Seattle."

Bumper sticker: "In Washington, a day without sunshine is just another day."