Seattle's Last Umbrella Shop Is Closing

THERE'S A POPULAR JOKE IN the Pacific Northwest that goes something like this: [What do you call someone in Seattle with an Umbrella?" [A tourist."

It just got a little more true. For years, Jodell Egbert-the owner of Bella Umbrella, the city`s only brick-and-mortar umbrella store-gamely stocked scores of the rainy-day tools, and even ran an umbrella repair service out of the shop. But those days are ending: Bella Umbrella is closing up.

[Every day somebody would come in and tell me it was stupid to have an umbrella store in Seattle because Seattleites don`t use Umbrellas," Egbert told the SeattleTimes. [It made me feel bad."

Why does anti-umbrella sentiment pervade Seattle-and indeed, much of the Pacific Northwest? As meteorologist Scott Sistek explains in this 2016 article, it likely has something to do with the area`s tiny raindrops. Raindrop size depends on the strength of updrafts: winds that blow vertically, and keep the water up in the clouds. The harder the updrafts blow, the more time each raindrop has to grow before it falls.

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