MileCheck / Mountains / Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier · 14,410 ft · live

Is Mount Rainier visible right now?

From Seattle and 5 other places. Read from the airport weather stations on the sightline and the cloud layers at the summit, not from a crowd.

The app

Mountain Visibility Forecast

All four mountains, a push when yours comes out. $0.99 once.

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Right now · from Seattle · Pacific time

Reading the airports along the sightline.

Viewpoints

Kerry ParkSunset · 1 mi
Ella Bailey ParkSunset · 2 mi
Alki PointAny light · 5 mi
Rizal BridgeAny light · 3 mi
Jack Block ParkSunrise · 3 mi
Maple Leaf ReservoirSunset · 5 mi
UW Rainier VistaAny light · 3 mi
Seward ParkSunrise · 7 mi
Point RustonSunset · 23 mi

Sunset spots put the mountain in front of you with the light behind you; sunrise spots want the water in front.

Clear windows, next three days

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Sunrise and sunset light

By region

Mountain Visibility Forecast

Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Mount Baker, Denali in one app. Picks the mountain nearest you, reads your part of the region, and tells you when it is out. $0.99 once. No account, no ads, your location stays on your phone.

Join the iOS beta Android coming soon

Where are you looking from?

The same sky gives a different answer twenty miles away. Pick your region.

From Seattle

60 miles to the summit. Its own stations, its own answer.

From the Eastside

56 miles to the summit. Its own stations, its own answer.

From Tacoma

42 miles to the summit. Its own stations, its own answer.

From Everett

81 miles to the summit. Its own stations, its own answer.

From Olympia

55 miles to the summit. Its own stations, its own answer.

From Kitsap

64 miles to the summit. Its own stations, its own answer.

Best time of year

Which months, which hours, and why a grey morning in Seattle can still be a clear mountain.

Questions

How do we know if Mount Rainier is visible?

We read the cloud ceilings at the airports between Seattle and the summit, the cloud layers at the summit from the MET Norway model, and whether that cloud sits below 14,410 ft. No crowd reports.

Why only three days?

Cloud forecasts stop being useful after about three days. A ten-day visibility forecast is a calendar with random numbers on it.

Why does the Eastside get a different answer than Seattle?

Different weather stations, different sky. The same morning can be fog in one and clear in the other, twenty miles apart. Each region page reads its own stations.

Limitations

Wildfire smoke and haze can hide the mountain on a day the cloud numbers say clear. When the numbers are unsure, the page says so.

Observations from NOAA aviation weather. Forecast from MET Norway (CC BY 4.0). Smoke from NOAA NDGD. Times are Pacific time. Not affiliated with the National Park Service or any public agency.