Western Oregon Rain

The reputation of Western Oregon/Western Washington as all rain all the time is not completely unearned, but like most stereotypes, is basically wrong. Our rainy season generally starts in earnest in November, and tapers off through May and June. September sometimes sees real rain, sometimes very little. October normally sees a very nice Indian summer, but at least a few rain events. However, this is a little misleading. "Rain" here is more often than not just drizzle for hours; in my nearly 30 years here, I've only seen a couple of downpours approaching the intensity of storms in Southeastern Ohio that were part of typical summer afternoons. The climatic stats reflect this: the average annual rainfall in Athens, Ohio is 45 inches, while that of Corvallis is 43 inches. So despite the reputation, we actually get less rain here than many climates that are considered drier. The upside of our damp winter is that the temperatures are very mild most of the time- night lows in the mid to upper 30's, daytime highs in the mid 40's. I used to enjoy cold winter weather, but I don't miss it. The downside is that it's almost always dark and gloomy; I think most people aren't so much irritated by the rain as they are by the weeks of deprivation of sunshine. We actually have a term, "sunbreak," for those couple of minutes when the sun peeks through the clouds during the winter.

But the point here, and a major misperception among many people I've talked to, is that it's drizzly year-round. Not True. July and August, and generally most of September, are drier than anything I could have imagined before I moved out here. We have had two rains this summer. According to accuweather.com, neither of these produced a measurable accumulation, for a grand total of 0.00 inches of rain since July 1. So much for "all rain all the time."

The news item that brought this to mind is an article by KGW on roadside fires along about 50 miles of the I-5 Corridor near Eugene (about 40 miles south of us). It is not clear what caused the grass fires, but officials are speculating "that vehicles with mechanical problems or with metal scraping the roadway may have created sparks that ignited in the dry grass and brush lining the interstate." This simply wouldn't have happened in the Midwest; it's too moist. Apparently a truckload of hay driving through the area picked up an unwelcome hitchhiker.

There's more pictures here. Apparently the traffic delays are pretty extreme. I'm happy just to sit here, drink coffee, and read about it. Happy I don't drive.

Followup: According to an article in our local rag, the Garbage and Trash, er, ahh, the Gazette-Times, the burning hay truck pitured above actually stopped near Jefferson, which is about 15 miles north of Corvallis on I-5. This suggests the fires were burning from Eugene to the north, not centered on Eugene as I had inferred from the first article.