I just got back from a quick jaunt to the New York City area for a friend's wedding, and the talk of the town there was how wet it has been lately. The cab driver that got me from Newark's airport, after the requisite "where ya here from?" and finding I was from Seattle, went on and on about how miserable the weather has been, and how it's rained every day for ages.

Sure enough, the weather people in New York were on rain streak watch. Thursday had been the 7th day in a row with rain at Central Park and they were wearily watching for the 8th day on Friday. The thunderstorms ended up passing just to the north into Connecticut for a dry Friday, although it did rain another more-than-half inch on Saturday.

But what really surprised me was that had it reached 8 days, it would have been the 4th wettest streak of all time in New York, with their record being....12. Yes, 12.  Or as we call it, "Christmas Break." And I'm not sure if that counted "trace" amounts as part of the streak, or if it had to measure to 0.01" to count.  Up in Boston, they were also dealing with 11 of the past 12 days of at least a trace of rain.

Back here, since October 1st, Seattle has had, in order, rain streaks of 7, 8 (13 if you count Trace), 6, 10 (14 with Trace), 5 (11 with Trace), a 12-day counting two traces, a 6, and a 5. And it hasn't been a particularly wet winter. Cool, yes, but not really that wet.

But if you want really long streaks, we can do that too.

Seattle's record for consecutive days with measurable rain is 33 days, set in 1953. Those that have been here a few years remember how we almost broke it in January of 2006, when we got up to 26 days in a row.

It could be worse -- Ketchikan, Alaska hit 101 days that same winter, and apparently, Kaneohe Ranch on the Hawaiian island of Oahu had a streak of 247 days in 1993-94, but that was near a rain forest, so it wasn't like a city population.

Anyway, I bring this up because we take our hits in the winter when we freak out over 2 inches of snow, and I'm sure you hear from all your East Coast relatives about how 2" of snow is nothing and they don't close school until the drifts are above the roof and blah, blah, blah.  Just goes to show how relative weather is.  A week of rain here is old hat, but back East, it's big news :)