Which months and which hours, from Seattle.
Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Mount Baker, Mount St. Helens, Denali, The Olympics and Mount Angeles. Visible now or not, the five-day forecast, and the sunrise and sunset light. $1.99, one time.
From Seattle the clearest stretch is July through September, when the marine layer is thin and most days deliver the mountain by mid-morning. In June the sun is up seventeen hours but the low cloud often does not burn off until afternoon.
October and November bring inversions. Seattle sits under fog while the mountain stands above it in sun, so a grey morning in the city can be the best view of the year from Tacoma or the Eastside. The region pages cover this.
December through February the mountain is visible a few days a month, usually the cold clear days after a front. Spring is unpredictable until late May.
Whatever the month, the two hours to watch are the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. Sunset lands on the west face, the one you see from Seattle.
Reading the airports along the sightline.
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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.
Cloud forecasts get less reliable the further out they go. Days four and five are drawn in six-hour steps for that reason, and the forecast stops at five.
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.
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.
Our pick for binoculars: Vortex Diamondback HD 10x42 on Amazon
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