My favorite place to get an accurate view of the weather in the Puget Sound region is Cliff Mass's weather blog. Although his post about what is happening this year and what we have to look forward to in the coming years, is a bit depressing.

The grey bars show the average number of hours of cloudiness at Sea-Tac Airport per month (1=January, 12=December). 18-19 hours a day in midwinter, with a gradual reduction to about 15 in June. Then a HUGE decrease to around 11 in July, a graduate increase through September, and a jump up in October. All locals know about this pattern--we have three months of relatively bountiful sun: July through September. But now the depressing part. The black line shows this year. You will notice that we have maintained wintertime cloud levels through June. And I guarantee you that when July numbers get plotted in a few days, we will be way above normal (probably 15-16). This figure, more than any other, expresses the unhappy moods of so many.

He goes on to talk about how the affects of global warming (which is a horrible name that should be called climate change) is going to continue to affect our region. I see a lot of hoop houses in our future!

Read more.

Effects of Climate Change

WSU extension service has a great PDF publication on hoop house construction

http://king.wsu.edu/foodandfarms/CultivatingSuccessCD/documents/Lesson11/eb1825.pdf