Where are the storms?  

It’s usually the wettest time of the year right now across Western Washington.  Behind November and January… December is typically our 3^rd wettest month of the year.  The first seven days of this December have been anything but usual.  A strong ridge of high pressure sitting off the coast has been dominating our weather for over a week now.  This has pushed the Pacific storms well up to north into British Columbia and Alaska.  It has also caused a temperature inversion to form… keeping us under those pesky low clouds with cold air settling in over the sound.  You can read more about what that inversion has meant for our weather in my blog post from earlier this week.

Coldest start to December on record

That’s right; the first week of December 2011 is one for the record books.  With a measly 0.01 inches of rainfall since the beginning of the month at Sea-Tac Airport, this ties us for the driest start to December on record.  Since 1948, the only other time we have started the month this dry was back in December 2006. 

Temperatures have also been on the low side.  When you average out the high and low temperatures over the last seven days, the average temperature so far this month is 36.1°.  That is 5.5° below normal, making this the 6^th coldest start on record at Sea-Tac. 

A special thanks to climate guru, Meteorologist Dana Felton from the National Weather Service office in Seattle for helping with these stats!

Rain is in the forecast… finally

We will be breaking out of this dry stagnant pattern this weekend.  It’s not going to be a strong storm, but a low pressure system moves over our area.  This will bring increasing light rain Saturday evening with some showers lingering into Sunday.  In addition to adding some rain into the bucket, it will help improve the air quality across Western Washington. 

Have a great day!     

-Sam Argier, KIRO 7 Morning Meteorologist