Another important one: they have a space needle! Who else does? The CN tower? In Canada? It’s WAY warmer in Seattle than Canada! So for warm weather vacationing WITH a space needle, forget Canada!
I lived in Seattle for years and grew to love the moderate weather. The summers are not very hot, but they are lush and green and flowery thanks to the rain. The winters are days and days of drizzle but it is seldom cold there, and I hate cold most of all.
When I lived there I heard often that Seattleites bought more sunglasses per capita than any other US city. That seems strange for a city that has months of gray skies, but an article written by someone who had consulted experts to explain why that is so came up with this: Gray skies are not necessarily dark. In fact, gray skies can be quite bright. Not only that, but the light comes from every direction of the sky. On a bright sunny day, you can shade your eyes from the sun with a hat bill, but a bright gray day is uniformly bright all over the sky. Another thing is that Seattle is quite far north, and the sun is low on the horizon for much of the year. So when the sun does come out, it is shining right in your face. What I suspect is that, like me, most Seattleites simply like the look. It fits our culture.
Try the Carl S. English Gardens at the Ballard Locks. They have at least three different kinds of palms, if I remember correctly. My favorite is the windmill palm, mainly because I like the way the name sounds. There’s a cluster of them near the lock keeper’s house. I also know of some palms outside a restaurant in Burien (near Sea-Tac Airport) and some more at a car wash near Federal Way that all seem to be the same variety. Six or eight feet high, they grow big clusters of datelike fruits in the summer. Though I don’t know if the fruits get a chance to reach maturity here, the palms themselves seem quite healthy.
And, yes, I’ve even seen banana plants grown here, though I think they tend to pack it in after a few years. One house I know of has maybe eight of them in their yard. Last I saw, last Spring, they were looking a bit sad.
Tibby or Not Tibby, thanks a lot for the laugh.
She probably lives in the region northeast of the Olympic Mountains, starting some 30 or 40 miles north of Seattle proper. The mountains creates a rain shadow effect in that area, which is also known as the Banana Belt. Indeed, they do get more sun and less rain there.
That’s up in Sequim. I’m east and south of there, and get way more rain. We are actually pretty directly west of Seattle proper. I just noticed some 6 foot palms in Port Townsend, in pots in front of Aldrich’s. They were bending nicely in the 25 knot winds.
The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle.
My best fiend is living in Mississippi, about 45 minutes from New Orleans. I was yakkin’ with him on the drive home Wednesday, and I mentioned that Seattle set a record temperature for 10 December of 66º (or was it 67º?). He said, ‘That’s warmer than it is here!’
When the skies are blue, as opposed to unremitting gray.
The Banana Belt actually affects more than the Sequim* area. Whidbey Island and the San Juans and even Victoria, B.C. benefit from it.
*Natives don’t pronounce the “e”. Se-quim, bad. Squim, good.
Yeah right. And I suppose the hills aren’t the greenest green either?
Say, who is that ‘Wanda fukka’ anyway?
First cousin of Sedro Woolley.
Speaking of S(e)quim - fresh Dungeness crab fresh off the boat.
Who is a distant cousin of Milton Freewater.
Based on every TV show ever set in Seattle, ever time it rains there is frequent lightning and thunder. That must be why the natives don’t use umbrellas: lightning rods!
This must be a new phenomena. When I was there I don’t ever remember a thunderstorm during the rainy season. Must be getting more tropical.
If you turn on the Seattle/San Francisco football game right now, you’ll see it’s a glorious sunny day in Seattle today. 
But it’s nicer in SF. 