Seattle

Seattle, Washington is located in the far northwestern corner of the United States, if you don’t consider Alaska. It is approximately 100 miles south of the Canadian border, nearly 3000 miles west of New York City and over 1000 miles north of Los Angeles, California.

The city is situated on a series of low hills overlooking the deep-water harbor of Puget Sound about 75 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. It is nearly surrounded by water with Puget Sound on the west, Lake Washington a few miles to the east and Lake Union connecting them across the north. On clear days the Cascade Mountains are visible on the eastern horizon and the Olympic Mountains loom across the Sound to the west. The snowcapped volcanic peak of Mount Rainier dominates the southern view. This city is set in the midst of some of the most beautiful natural scenery in the USA.

The climate is surprisingly mild this far north. Warm currents off the Pacific Coast tend to moderate the local weather. Summers are never very hot and winters are not very cold. Little snow falls in the city. Seattle is often called the rainy city, but that is not accurate. The city does not receive a lot of rain, but it does get about 220 days of cloud cover every year, and most of the rain occurs during the winter months. Sunshine and blue skies can be rare from October through March.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport or Sea-Tac is located about 10 miles south of downtown Seattle just west of Interstate route 5.