Many people refer to our area as the "Sunny San Juans", and with good reason. Although we are located near Puget Sound in Western Washington, which receives anywhere from 20 to 50 inches of rain per year, the San Juan Islands are unique in that, they occupy an area known as the "banana belt" or the "rain shadow of the Olympics".
Through a combination of meterological phenomena, air blowing inland from the Pacific Ocean from the southwest loses most of its moisture on the western slopes of the Olympic Mountains, where the annual rainfall can be as high as 200 inches per year. By the time the air reaches us, most of the moisture is gone and we end up receiving about 20 to 25 inches per year.
So if the forecast calls for rain, it just may be that it's sunny here in the San Juans and time for a round of golf!
