Mark Sundstrom

A record for daily rainfall in Seattle, 5 inches, as told by this story in the Seattle Times. Seattle has a reputation for rainy weather, but that comes more from having the rain spread out over seemingly every day of the year -- Seattle's average annual rainfall of 35 to 40 inches is similar to many other places in the USA.

I did a 7 mile walk in that rain yesterday, mostly to see what it would be like. Usally when I walk in the rain, I put on a waterproof rain jacket and pants and stay quite dry (except for my shoes). However, I wouldn't be doing that for an event such as the upcoming Seattle Marathon, so I chose some clothes I thought I might be wearing in that, along with a waterproof hat, to see how warm or cold it would be. I got thoroughly wet but stayed comfortable.

Updated in 2011 to remove a dead link and place the photos in the page.

The Port of Seattle has tugboat races every year as part of its Maritime Festival. The larger tugboats and move along at a smart pace, throwing up a large wake in the process. I watched from home, about two miles away, where I could see most of the race except the actual finish. The boats and the organizers were communicating on marine radio, so I could listen in on channel 9 and know what was going on.

With my camera shooting through the telescope, I got some closeup photos. The fireboat water action was prior to the start of the races.

In 2011, updated the USGS link to point to the earthquake report

A magnitude 4.8 earthquake woke me up early this morning, just after 3am. It was a gentle shaking and at first I wasn't sure what was going on, but it continued for several seconds and then stopped. No rattling of dishes or creaks of the building. Nothing at all like the Nisqually quake of 28 February 2001. It was a deep earthquake under the Olympic Mountains. This USGS web page has more information. I filled out one of the report forms, just as I did for the Nisqually quake.