**UPDATED 6 AM SATURDAY, 12/21/19 **
The last time it rained more in Seattle in a single day, the Sonics were still in town.
A staggering 3.25 inches of rain pelted Seattle on Friday—the highest amount of daily precipitation recorded since 3.77 inches fell at the height of widespread flooding on Dec. 3, 2007. Back when, you know, the Seattle Sonics were a thing.
Friday’s heavy rainfall—which ranks 5th on the list of the top 10 wettest days in Seattle history—comes on the heels of a daily-record 1.32 inches that fell in Seattle Thursday. That brings the two-day rainfall total at Sea-Tac Airport, where official records for the city are measured, to 4.57 inches—with the overwhelming majority falling since noon on Thursday.
Put another way, in just two days, Seattle has gone from a much-drier-than-normal December—the rainfall tally through Wednesday was only 1.76 inches—to a soggier-than-normal one. The city’s monthly rainfall total now stands at 6.33 inches—already above the norm for the entire month of 5.35 inches.
And we’re not done yet.
Current forecast models indicate up to another inch of rain is possible before the heavy precipitation—courtesy of an intense atmospheric river—subsides later this afternoon. By that point, the monthly rainfall total for December will likely exceed 7 inches.
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