The First Day of Summer: When Will It Be?

The big question that is on everyone's mind:

When will summer really begin?

There is a stock answer that local meteorologists give for this query:
July 12th. And it is usually pretty close to the truth.

First, lets get real. June is often a bad month in Seattle. June gloom. Lots of low clouds. ( The good thing is you can usually get out of it by crossing into eastern Washington.) Memorial Day weekend has never been dependable. I can't count how many times the media has done the same story about the unusually cloudy spring.

There is NO reason to suspect our cold weather is due to the Iceland volcano, the oil spill in the Gulf, or El Nino/La Nino. It does not have any connection with global warming or sunspots.

The July 4th weekend is also a crap shoot. Sometimes very nice, often not. But then something magical happens...it is like someone throws a switch...and by mid July we have the best weather in the U.S. --temps in the 70s, low humidity, sunny skies, not too many bugs--heaven. In fact in July we get less rain than Tucson or Phoenix.

The change in July is really quite extraordinary...one of the most rapid climatological dry-outs in the U.S. Below is a graph of the daily probability of getting a trace of rain or more for.. July is just amazing. During the first few days of the month there is roughly a 30% chance of rain in any day. By the last week..roughly 8%.


Want to get married outdoors or hold a party?...end of July or beginning of August is the driest period of the year. No doubt that is why Seafair is scheduled then.

What about the next week? The next few days will have rain on and off. But then, next weekend, the models are going for a major warm up...we will see.