Weather

Additional resources Island Cam The Weather Channel Page: Friday Harbor MSNBC radar report

Often times when you think of the Pacific Northwest, you think rain! However, in the San Juans, we see the sun on an average 247 days out of the year.

The islands are "protected" by surrounding ocean waters, and mountain ranges. The ocean temperatures average 45 degrees in the winter and 52 degrees in the summer. Thus, cooling the air in the summer and warming it in the winter. The Cascade Mountains are approximately 50 miles east and help to "block" the freezing cold weather systems that come down from Canada. The Olympics and Vancouver Island tend to push most prevailing winds up into cooler air and force them to dump their rain, keeping the San Juans from receiving almost half the rainfall that Seattle does.

• The mean high temperature in the islands varies only 28 degrees between January and July, normally the coldest and hottest months. The mean low temperature varies only 18 degrees.
  
  
• The weather is eternally moderate. Temperatures rarely top 80 degrees in the summer and rarely fall below 30 degrees in the winter.
  
  
• The islands enjoy all four seasons, although winter isn't as spectacular as it is in other northern climates. It does occasionally snow here. However, it only snows about once or twice a year and usually not much more than an inch or two.
  
  
• There are an average of 247 days each year when the sun makes an appearance. In the dry summer months and especially during September and early October, the islands go for weeks without a cloud in the sky.
  
  
• Rainfall in the islands averages 29 inches a year.
  
  
• Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, long periods of gray skies, high humidity, blizzards, extreme heat or cold, are almost unheard of in the islands. The islands do occasionally experience a nor'easter when the arctic cold roars down from the Yukon.
  
  
• The islands have been known to experience small earthquakes.
  
  
• The highest official temperature reached 93 degrees (July 1941) and the lowest was 8 degrees (January 1950).
  
  
• The wettest month was January 1935 when 13.04 inches of precipitation was recorded at the weather station on Olga. Another extremely wet month was November of 1990, when an average 11 inches of rain was recorded.
  
  
• The highest summer temperatures and coldest winter weather occur when the winds come out of the northeast.
  
  
• Island tides range over 14 feet. The extreme low tide of -4.0 feet to the extreme high tide of over 10 feet.