Author Topic: pacific coast route weather/october  (Read 15901 times)

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Offline mrphil

pacific coast route weather/october
« on: September 10, 2011, 07:19:28 pm »
Looking to ride the Pacific Coast Route leaving Bellingham,Wa Oct 3rd. Need some more realistic weather considerations. Thanks

Offline whittierider

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2011, 08:46:37 pm »
You're more likely to get rain than summer, but it's not quite into the real rainy season.  I planned an October Pacific-coast trip a couple of years ago, and the ten-day forecast was perfect until the night before I was to leave, then they turned it to a significant chance of rain every day for the foreseeable future.  You'd think that if they think they can give you a ten-day forecast, at leat the first several days of it would be accurate and they wouldn't be changing it all suddenly.  I don't enjoy rain riding at all, so I cancelled it.

Offline Twoteller

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2011, 11:56:27 pm »
Weather can be hit-or-miss. I have seen some spectacular weather up there that time of year, and not so great weather other times.

Offline bogiesan

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2011, 11:01:30 am »
Every bend in the western coast route represents a new microclimate. There is no way to predict accurately the isoalted weather systems through which you will pass. It will be wet, dry, foggy, rainy, windy, overcast, clear—sometimes all in one 10-12 hour period.

We've had an unusually wet 2010 winter and 2011 spring in the inland Northwest, Idaho and eastern Oregon and Washington. The ski season was long and profitable, reservoirs are full, rivers ran high, hydroelectric production and surface irrigation were good but we have had no measurable precipitation in most of Idaho since July. And yet, on the Ride Idaho 2011 tour, we experienced severe isolated mountain thunderstorms like I haven't seen in decades. Hail, sideways rain, big winds, lightning. Spooky.

You can make no prgnositcations about weather.
I play go. I use Macintosh. Of course I ride a recumbent

Offline litespeed

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2011, 02:56:09 pm »
I left Petaluma a few years ago on October 22. Two storms rolled through before I got to Guadalupe. It made for a dreary trip. You might luck out leaving early in October. Good luck. If you can leave earlier I would suggest doing so.

Offline MaryK

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2011, 08:10:44 am »
I did the Pacific Coast in 2010, leaving in late September.  It was cool and rainy at least through all of WA and most of OR.  I rode most of the trip in tights and long sleeves.  I'd suggest starting as early as you can.

Offline Westinghouse

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2011, 11:12:05 am »
I did the PC beginning in August one time. Oregon was somewhat rainy. It was quite dry in CA. North coastal temps. were cool and cold at night, and warm during the day and sometimes cool. It warmed farther south.

Offline ChromolyWally

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2011, 02:35:40 am »
I'm starting from northern Oregon tomorrow.  Heading down to L.A. somewhere. Wouldn't you know, forecast for tomorrow and Sunday is rain.  Looks ok after that in the near term.  But it's always a gamble on the coast, especially the further north you are.  I ran into a 3-day winter-like storm in mid August 2008 near Newport, Oregon.  It can rain any month of the year.  Oct on the CA coast can be beautiful, or you could hit rain there too. Just prepare for rain and enjoy any sun you happen to get.

One place I like to go for weather guesses is weatherspark.com.    Search for weather in whatever city you're interested in, then under the "More" tab click on "Reports" for a rather detailed guess (along with the probability) on what the weather will be for any given date, based on decades of data.

Offline staehpj1

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #8 on: September 26, 2011, 09:34:38 am »
Looking to ride the Pacific Coast Route leaving Bellingham,Wa Oct 3rd. Need some more realistic weather considerations. Thanks
A good resource for checking what can be expected based on historical data is weatherspark.com.  I have used it to check locations along my route at the dates I expect to be there and the info has been pretty helpful for planning.  While weather there is always a crap shoot to some extent, the weather for my trip was exactly what I expected based on the data there.

BTW: I started in Bremerton on my recent pacific coast tour and if I had it to do over I would skip Washington.  Camping opportunities were poor and the scenery was kind of underwhelming compared to Oregon and California.  It was OK, but just not as nice and Oregon or California.  At least that was my impression for the route I took.  A different rider or a different route might yield a different result though.


Offline Pat Lamb

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #9 on: September 26, 2011, 09:50:25 am »
BTW: I started in Bremerton on my recent pacific coast tour and if I had it to do over I would skip Washington.  Camping opportunities were poor and the scenery was kind of underwhelming compared to Oregon and California.  It was OK, but just not as nice and Oregon or California.  At least that was my impression for the route I took.  A different rider or a different route might yield a different result though.

Pete, just for my edification, how much of the PCT were you on in Washington?  I think I remember you were thinking about joining the trail part of the way down the state.

Offline staehpj1

Re: pacific coast route weather/october
« Reply #10 on: September 26, 2011, 10:45:45 am »
Pete, just for my edification, how much of the PCT were you on in Washington?  I think I remember you were thinking about joining the trail part of the way down the state.
I flew into Seattle and took the ferry to Bremerton.  From Bremerton to Astoria I pretty much followed the AC maps.  I think that amounted to about 250 miles.

BTW: I met quite a few guys on the route who were from various parts of Washington and the ones I talked to about it said they preferred to start in Astoria as well.