22 Inches and How to Get There

The days have gotten cooler in the last few weeks since the cruise ships have left. Proof that the cruising industry knows just what they are doing. Short sleeved shirts and light jackets have been replaced by sweatshirts and raincoats. Coming from Phoenix makes this difficult to imagine. This month alone we will be getting as much rain a phoenix does in about 3 years. When telling people that we were moving to Alaska the most common comment was, 'Oh you are going to be so cold'. Too which I would reply, 'It doesn't snow much but mostly rains in Ketchikan'. 'So like Seattle,' they would say. The answer is Seattle gets roughly 37 inches of rain per year compared to Ketchikan's 156 inches, so no not like Seattle.

October begins the rainy month for Ketchikan. If you go to http://weather.msn.com/local.aspx?wealocations=wc:USAK0125 and scroll down to the averages for temperature and rainfall you will see that Ketchikan gets 22 inches of rain this month.

So how do you get to 22 inches of rain in one month (that is more than half of what Seattle gets a year)? Well it requires roughly 3/4 inch per day. But it doesn't rain all the time so some of that rain comes in the form of large storms from the Gulf of Alaska.

This is the current image for Dec 23rd. ( I will try to update it regularly)

These arrive in South-East Alaska in the form of gail force winds and several inches of rain in one day. Unlike some places, Phoenix for example, if you don't like the weather you just wait a few minutes and it will change. In Ketchikan if you want to wait for the rain to stop before going out you'll have to wait until April. People just go about doing what they want to do despite the rain.

The other thing that surprised me about Ketchikan is the moss on the roofs. I remember the line from Elton Johns song 'I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss', now I know what he meant. I had never seen moss on roof before here. I will try to post some of those pictures when I get the chance.

One more link for you folks. If you want to see what the weather is like in Ketchikan click on http://www.earthcam.com/usa/alaska/ketchikan/ . The site refreshes every twenty seconds.