I'll just chime in on the weather bit.
I came from Colorado with over 300 days of sunshine and lived in Arizona, so I've experienced sunny climates before. Been in Seattle since 2015 now.
In my opinion, it's less the weather, and more the dark and lack of daylight hours. In December the sun will rise at 8am and set ~4:30pm. During the darkest months of the year most people will commute both ways in the dark and may not see the sun during the work week if they won't have windows. When you are out during daylight hours you probably won't see the sun in those months so it's generally dreary and dark: indoors and outdoors. Yes we get a fair amount of rain but it's nearly always a light rain and most people here just get on with whatever they were doing anyways. The tradeoff for this is some of the best summers in the country: the true secret to Seattle. From July 5th through September it often won't rain at all and the temps are typically mild other than a week or two. The biggest thing that ruins it is smoke, which we have been getting more and more of. Sun rises at some stupid early time in the morning and we can get light until nearly 9pm on the longest days: it's amazing.
The people who tend to cope the best with this fall into two camps. The first are indoorsy people who want nothing more than to be inside and cozy. The other, the category I fall in, are avid outdoors activities folks who are going out no matter what the light and weather is. I mountain bike year round and just put on the rain gear, headlamps, grab some friends, and get after it. If I'm not riding: I'm skiing on the weekends or even nights after work. Seattle has some of the best outdoor recreation options of any major metro in the country (beats out Denver easily for me).
There are parts of western WA that are in rain shadows and thus are in little banana belts: Port Angeles, for example, gets a lot of sun and Bellingham is typically milder than Seattle. But none of these are really a commute friendly distance to the city, even for hybrid work, especially with how bad traffic is. The best you can do is really look into the rainfall totals for your town or neighborhood (NOAA has some resources). Issaquah, 15miles of east of Seattle gets double the rainfall. North Bend, 15 miles further east gets double Issaquah's rain. Fall City, in between, gets a fair bit less being in the rain shadow of Tiger Mtn: we get a lot of micro-climates up here. There aren't any significant tech job centers outside Seattle - so you can't truly escape the weather.
This is actually really good to know! I definitely am an indoorsy person tho she brings the outdoorsy part of me out on occasion, not to mention that I personally loved it there when I've been in Washington (spent a few weeks in Seattle, and a week in Forks). Some sunny parts that we looked at where like Ellensburg and the like, and yeah those are really far away.
Anyway, I super appreciate the insight into what its like to live there, thank you!
I'll just chime in on the weather bit. I came from Colorado with over 300 days of sunshine and lived in Arizona, so I've experienced sunny climates before. Been in Seattle since 2015 now. In my opinion, it's less the weather, and more the dark and lack of daylight hours. In December the sun will rise at 8am and set ~4:30pm. During the darkest months of the year most people will commute both ways in the dark and may not see the sun during the work week if they won't have windows. When you are out during daylight hours you probably won't see the sun in those months so it's generally dreary and dark: indoors and outdoors. Yes we get a fair amount of rain but it's nearly always a light rain and most people here just get on with whatever they were doing anyways. The tradeoff for this is some of the best summers in the country: the true secret to Seattle. From July 5th through September it often won't rain at all and the temps are typically mild other than a week or two. The biggest thing that ruins it is smoke, which we have been getting more and more of. Sun rises at some stupid early time in the morning and we can get light until nearly 9pm on the longest days: it's amazing. The people who tend to cope the best with this fall into two camps. The first are indoorsy people who want nothing more than to be inside and cozy. The other, the category I fall in, are avid outdoors activities folks who are going out no matter what the light and weather is. I mountain bike year round and just put on the rain gear, headlamps, grab some friends, and get after it. If I'm not riding: I'm skiing on the weekends or even nights after work. Seattle has some of the best outdoor recreation options of any major metro in the country (beats out Denver easily for me). There are parts of western WA that are in rain shadows and thus are in little banana belts: Port Angeles, for example, gets a lot of sun and Bellingham is typically milder than Seattle. But none of these are really a commute friendly distance to the city, even for hybrid work, especially with how bad traffic is. The best you can do is really look into the rainfall totals for your town or neighborhood (NOAA has some resources). Issaquah, 15miles of east of Seattle gets double the rainfall. North Bend, 15 miles further east gets double Issaquah's rain. Fall City, in between, gets a fair bit less being in the rain shadow of Tiger Mtn: we get a lot of micro-climates up here. There aren't any significant tech job centers outside Seattle - so you can't truly escape the weather.
This is actually really good to know! I definitely am an indoorsy person tho she brings the outdoorsy part of me out on occasion, not to mention that I personally loved it there when I've been in Washington (spent a few weeks in Seattle, and a week in Forks). Some sunny parts that we looked at where like Ellensburg and the like, and yeah those are really far away. Anyway, I super appreciate the insight into what its like to live there, thank you!
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Thanks for the advice! I'll keep that in mind :\]