In over 120 years of record-keeping, we’ve never witnessed an April day like this before.
Seattle soared to a jaw-dropping 89 degrees this afternoon, setting a new record for the hottest April temperature in the city’s history. The toasty reading easily beat the previous mark of 85 degrees, reached just four times before: once in 1976 at Sea-Tac Airport, and three times in the late 19th / early 20th century at the Federal Building in downtown Seattle.
In the process, the city obliterated the previous daily record high for the day—77 degrees, set back in 1962. The normal high temperature for April 18 is just 59 degrees. The off-the-charts warmth also gave Seattle its second straight April day in the 80s—setting the city up nicely for an unheard of three-peat tomorrow. In the entirety of Seattle’s climate record, we’ve never reached 80 degrees in the month of April on three consecutive days—a feat we’re all but assured of locking up tomorrow.
Welcome to summer*, er, spring in Seattle. Might want to dig out that sunscreen before it’s too late.
*Seattle’s hottest temperature during the entire summer of 2011 was 87 degrees—further proof of just how unprecedented today’s heat was.
