moving to Seattle area

[kcjon]

My wife and I are thinking of moving from Kansas City to the Seattle area. What advice would you locals have. We could both transfer with our current employers. One of the benefits would be the weather. It would be nice to get away from the frigid cold we get. It will also be nice to have more activities including local diving!

Give me your honest opinion of the rainy weather. I hear it's not a hard rain but a constant drizzle with grey skies for 9 months. Is this pretty accurate? What do you guys do in the winter to keep entertains? Thanks for any input.

 

[Julian55]

Nah it's not so bad, everyone says it rains for nine months but that's not true. The diving is awesome and Seattle has lots of things to do if you go out and look for it.


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[LowDrag]

The diving in and around Seattle IS cool. There are tons of things to do there but check on the economy before deciding to move. Traffic in the city itself can be a PITA. I have left Cove 2 at Alki Beach in West Seattle headed back to Portland and the north bound traffic is packed. If there is a boat race in the summertime, which there will be from what I have heard, the traffic in both directions can be horrendous. From talking to friends that live up there, the outer lying areas are easier to travel and work in. Even with with all of that, if I could convince my wife to move up there we would go in a heart beat. There is a strong dive presence there and a ton of shops to check out. You also have Hood Canal which is a bit of a drive from Seattle but with the trip. There is Sund Rock, Octopus Hole, and Flagpole to name a couple of popular sites. British Columbia is also not too far away with some of the best diving in the world. One of the sites mods,TSandM, may pop in here before too long and add in some more info.

 

[Peter Guy]

"The Seattle Area" covers a very wide swath with so many different micro-climates that it is hard to actually tell anyone what they will find until they actually pick a place.

Seattle itself has annual average rainfall of about 38 inches -- go 25 miles east, in an area that supports lots of homes of "Softies" and you'll find average annual rainfall approaching 60 inches (I know, I grew up there). OTOH, go 25 miles west (across Puget Sound) and you may find yourself in a "rain shadow" with rainfall in the 10-15 inches/year -- or go north and....

We do have a lot of gray days in the winter -- partly because of the clouds, which keep the temps up in the low-mid 40s and partly because the sun doesn't get very high in the sky (Seattle is about 48 degrees north latitude -- 8 hours of "sun" in mid-winter -- 16 hours of sun in mid-summer).

It ain't Kansas!

 

[TSandM]

We absolutely don't have the weather extremes of the Midwest. But what we do have is very little light in the wintertime. The sun is WAY south of us, and the sky is frequently overcast. There are winter days where you couldn't read a newspaper outdoors at noon. The weather isn't cold by Midwest standards, but temperatures in the high 30's with overcast skies and a bit of wind makes for kind of a miserable day where you don't want to go outdoors.

The good news is that the water temperature varies very little through the year, and the cool weather in fall and spring makes it easy to get into heavy exposure protection without getting heatstroke.

 

[kcjon]

Thanks for the input. I would be working in Auburn and she would be right downtown Seattle. We are thinking Issaquah would be a good place to settle. What about Bainbridge island, i could possible work at the DT Seattle office and then we could commute via ferry. I know the cost of living is higher than what we are used to here, but i think we would be ok. Any other suggestions?