Under the Weather

Is that…actually rain?? It is! After a 16-day hiatus from measurable rainfall at Paine Field, we finally received some rain on Thursday Aug. 4 —and boy, did it feel nice. At the time of writing this, the temperature outside at KPAE is sitting pretty at around 60 degrees. This feels quite refreshing after what seemed…

Trophies all around for those who have not melted yet this week. It’s never easy in our neck of the woods when the heat hits us like this, primarily due to the fact that many people do not have any form of air conditioning. For the majority of the summer, a fan in the window…

At this point in the summer, we’ve had a grand total of three days that hit a high temperature of 80 degrees or higher (according to data at Paine Field). All three of those days occurred almost a month ago with the heat wave that happened at the end of June. Since then, there have…

I don’t know if any of you have watched the movie High School Musical 2, but there’s a line from one of those songs that is coming to mind at the moment. During the opening song, one of the main characters belts out the phrase “summertime is finally here.” In that context, they are technically…

Despite the chance for some showers on our nation’s birthday, we ended up with a very nice day. At Paine Field, we saw a high of 66 degrees—a few degrees below the average 4th of July temperature—and did not register any rainfall. I celebrated most of the day outside and it was very pleasant. We did…

The month of June is already wrapped up and the Fourth of July is just around the corner. This is the time of year where people really start expecting the weather to reflect the season. Last weekend, we had a good taste of summer with the first real heatwave of the year. Much like last…

Happy summer, everybody! The astronomical season has officially caught up with its meteorological counterpart as of June 21. And just like last year, summer is looking to make a big statement with its arrival. Remember last year’s scorcher? I know I do, especially because I was getting married right as the heat wave was beginning….

The rain comes…the rain goes…then it comes again. Sound familiar? This pattern continues to occur, even with the month of June well underway. As we inch closer and closer to astronomical summer, you would expect that the weather would start getting consistently nicer—but that just hasn’t been the case. The rain just keeps coming back….

As of June 1, we have officially reached meteorological summer and, if anyone was wondering, the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season. With the exception of a few outliers, our spring felt more like fall, with cooler than average temperatures and what seemed like unrelenting wet weather. Take a look at the graphic below,…

So far, our spring could be characterized by three words—cloudy, wet, and cool. There have been a few outliers, of course, but we seem to continue returning to the same pattern over and over again. We haven’t had two completely dry days (meaning zero inches of rain each day) in a row in almost a…

It really does seem like we can’t get much of a break from the rain around here. Through the first 11 days of the month, we’ve had eight days with measurable rainfall, two days with a trace amount, and a mere one day with nothing. Take a look at the following graph, which shows the…

It really seems like we can’t get much of a break from the wet and cool weather. Much of April consisted of this type of weather and May has mostly continued on the same trend. Since April 1 (and this is no joke), we’ve only seen six days with temperatures in the 60s—three of which occurred…

The month of April is almost over—crazy, isn’t it? The month’s weather as a whole could be characterized by two words: cool and showery. We’ve had moments of excitement with the occasional bout of hail and lightning, but overall, there hasn’t been much to write home about. Speaking to the cooler temperatures, take a look…

I hope that everyone had a great Easter! It wasn’t the warmest day, but it was dry and sunny. Speaking of temperatures, we’ve been running a little cool over the past couple of weeks. Take a look at the following graphic, which shows our temperatures for the month so far at Paine Field. The brown…

Happy almost Easter, everybody! The past week has been quite interesting in the weather department, with some areas seeing bouts of heavy rain, breezy winds, hail and even some light snow—making it seem a little more like January than April. This unsettled weather pattern has been in place for awhile and things aren’t looking to…

The month of March is officially in the books and April is well underway. We finished March with 1.14 inches of rain, compared to the average of 3.63 inches. This actually is the lowest monthly rainfall total for the month of March at Paine Field. A graph showing the total March precipitation for each year…

Happy April, everybody! It’s no joke that the year has gone by very fast so far—and we’re getting closer and closer to summertime. We’re at the weird point of the year where it could be sunny and 60 degrees one day and the next it could be pouring and barely making it out of the…

Well, we made it, everyone. We have survived another Pacific Northwest winter and have officially transitioned into spring. To make things even better, we were able to celebrate the new season with an actual spring-like day on Tuesday (March 22). I mentioned last week that we had the chance of seeing the first 60-degree day…

When we were in the height of our cold snap back in late December and early January, many of you were probably longing for spring—or the warmer/nicer weather generally associated with it—to come quickly. Since then, we’ve had a drier-than-average year up to this point, with 66% of the days having less than 0.01 inches…

Our transition from meteorological winter to spring was definitely a wet one after the majority of February was dry. Here is a map showing rainfall totals over the past week, from Friday through Thursday, March 3. Over the past week, most locations in Western Washington saw several inches of rainfall. The Tacoma Narrows Airport saw…

Many areas woke up to a slight dusting of snow Thursday morning. We were able to eke out just enough moisture at a cold enough temperature to make that happen. Most of that snow was no more than a pretty sight in the morning, as it quickly melted with sunny skies. Still, it seems like…

The month of February thus far has been very dry—abnormally so. Over the course of the first 16 days of the month, we’ve seen a mere 0.32 inches of measurable rainfall. We’ve had several days with a “trace” amount of rain, but not enough to register 0.01 inches in the gauge. The graph below depicts…

It seems like the month of February is just flying by—here we are, already approaching Valentine’s Day. At this point last year, we were about to see a blast of wintry weather. Anyone else remember our white Valentine’s Day? Below shows a picture that I took from Kirkland during that snowy event. This year, however,…

With the exception of a few storms at the beginning of the new year, we haven’t had much in the way of rain for several weeks now. We had a semi-active winter toward the end of 2021, but not much has happened since then. Take a look at the graph below. This is data taken…

Just as expected, the dry weather has continued over the past week or so. We did see a trace of rain very early on Jan. 21 (which barely counts as anything), but we’ve had seven days in a row with no measurable rainfall if you include Thursday, the 27th. I’m sure many of you are very…