Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying and the kudos!
Bellingham is definitely gloomy (perhaps even a touch more so than average for interior Western Washington) but at least it reliably gets relatively cold and snowy compared to areas further south along Puget Sound or the Willamette Valley.
Honestly, it's not the actual amount of precip that the area receives, it's the persistent cloudiness combined with the short days leading to a merciless lack of sunlight during the rainy season even for the latitude. I would imagine, say, International Falls to be much more agreeable in that regard and doubt the hardy inhabitants of that area have the same vitamin D supplementation needs as the sad, soggy residents of the northern PNW.
I actually spent my childhood in the greater Atlanta area and my hometown receives substantially more precip than Bellingham - but it also receives immeasurably (not really, but it sure seems like it
) more sun. Down there an inch or 2 of rain that falls during the course of a day might all come down in an hour or two leaving the remainder of the day sunny (if muggy). Here an inch or 2 of rain in a day means that just about every second of every minute of every hour of the day is plagued by continuous rainfall.
I could cite some WeatherLink calculated values for accumulated solar radiation at my site that would make you shudder...for instance, December 2022 managed just 63.26MJ/m^2 of accumulated solar energy for the entire month (about what one would expect during 3 typical midsummer days) along with 0.375" of ET. There was 4.43" of precipitation including about 12" of snowfall and around .5" of ice/freezing rain with a monthly mean temp of 34.2F.
