Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Extraordinary Dryness and a New "Record" Achieved

This dry spell continues to deepen and lengthen.  Keep in mind a period of no rain in mid to late September is far more unusual that in late July and August.   August was the driest on record in Seattle.   September has had two days of .01 inches, so unfortunately we are already wetter than the previous record-breaker (a trace).

We came close (47 days) to the all-time record stretch of less than measurable rainfall (.01 inch), which is 51 days.

But what is SO special about .01 inches?   What if we picked the longest stretch at Sea-Tac Airport of daily precipitation less than .02 inches?  What year would be the winner?

THIS YEAR!

Yes, it is true, yesterday we tied and TODAY we achieved the record long stretch of such dry days: 58 consecutive days less than 0.02 inches.  For those weather-number lovers in the blogosphere, here is a graphic (produced two days ago) that shows you the record stretches of dry weather for various thresholds (thanks to Neal Johnson of the UW for collecting this information.


The latest forecast models indicated no rain over the next week, but a minority of the forecast models show the potential for rain later next week....but that is too far into the future to have much confidence it. 

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