Conditions around Olympic National Park

I do a lot of backpacking in the Olympics, especially the winter

It is wet and cool a lot.  I can usually find a stretch of a week without significant rain.  I don’t like packing and unpacking when it’s raining, but occasionally that happens.

I really like the ocean beach, like at Ozette or Toleak Point, in the winter – few people, interesting wildlife,…

That whole Seattle/Olympic Peninsula area is one of the wetter areas of the USA… Olympic Peninsula being famous for it’s rain forests… though you would be on the drier side of the peninsula. It will be very rainy all fall thru spring… June, July, August being the driest months, but still some rain.

“Bremerton has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csb), with warm dry summers and wet semi-mild winters. Average annual precipitation is 56.93 inches (1,446.0 mm), with annual snowfall averaging 3 inches (7.62 cm). The wettest year has been 1999 with 75.81 inches (1,925.6 mm) and the driest 1943 with 22.73 inches (577.3 mm).[17] The city falls in USDA climate zone 8.”

56 inches of rain is a lot… I lived in a place that averaged 35 inches and considered that a pretty rainy place in the winter (summers were totally dry)

I’m not sure you would like that area unless you can learn to enjoy the rain…. my 2 cents…

There are small pockets of dry areas in the rain shadow of the Olympics, but they aren’t huge. For the most part it either is, or very close to being, a rainforest.

I lived near Seattle which has about 35″ of rain, in a place that received 55″ + of rain. Rain gear was a priority every month of the year.

End of July and early August are typically dry, the rest of time rain is normally in the forecast.

I moved after 60 years of it to the dry side of the state, now its about 16″ of rain.

One thing that is happening on the wet side of the state is fires are far more common, forests that haven’t seen a fire in a few hundred years are now burning rather often.

There are exceptions to Fall rain weather. Pic from mid-Oct last year at Shi Shi beach. Out there a week and no rain but rare.

I once surfed at Shi-shi. My pals and I would surf at McCaw beach at Neah Bay a fair amount and once just walked in our boards. great beach!

Late Fall, Winter, Spring in the Olympic Peninsula mountains. Expect rain. And then more rain. If it’s not snowing in the mountains, then it’s raining. Or it’s snowing and raining. It’s a wet cold. There are exceptions to this as Jerry noted. But few. If you are looking for drier snow conditions, I would consider the Eastern side of WA state, or Idaho.