View from Hurricane Ridge Road of the snowcapped Olympic Mountains. The views up here are just unbelievable. We are on the "dry" side of the mountains or "the rain shadow" on the north- northeast side. The rainfall on this side is about 20" a year and on the south-southwest side of the park is the rain forest side with over 140"-180" a year. The explaination or the Rainshadow I will quote directly off the sign we saw. "Mountains cast the shadow. Saturated Pacific winds rise steeply up the coastal slopes. As sudden altitude cools and condenses the air, most of the moisture is wrung out by the time the clouds reach this corner of the peninsula."
This happens with Cascades too which we never realized. East of the Cascades is very dry and most is high plains desert and west of the Cascades is overcast and have the reputation of being wet. Although in Seattle they are quick to point out that they get less than 36" of rain a year, much less than you would think but they have many overcast days. We had it explained as "It rains a little a lot".
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