And you thought only politicians were masters at flip-flopping.
October 2012 has pulled off an impressive about-face of its own, having gone from near-record dryness in the first third of the month to a top-five finish in the ranks of Seattle’s wettest Octobers.
Although it seems like eons ago, what with our constantly drippy skies, last month began as Seattle’s driest in 21 years, with no rainfall recorded through Oct. 11. Those first 11 days, when tacked on to the extreme dryness the region experienced in August and September, gave us our driest roughly two-and-half month period (81 days to be exact, fact-checkers) in Seattle history.
The dam finally burst a few weeks ago, though—we saw 1.23 inches of rain from Oct. 12-15, as opposed to the .03 measured from July 23-Oct. 11—and the onslaught continued right up to the end, with Sea-Tac recording .57 inches yesterday. This past Tuesday was even wetter, with 1.36 inches falling at the airport—establishing a new record for the wettest Oct. 30 in Seattle.
All told, October recorded 6.71 inches of rain, tying it with 1956 as Seattle’s fifth-wettest October since at least 1891, when weather records were first taken at the Federal Building downtown (Sea-Tac Airport has served as the city’s official weather-reporting station since 1945). Last month’s rainfall tally is also nearly double the 3.48 inches that we receive during an average October—even more remarkable when you consider that none of it fell until the flip-flop from dry to wet on the 12th.
Already, October’s sogginess has spilled over into November, with an inconveniently timed downpour during the morning commute amounting to .29 inches by 10 a.m. Thankfully, the rain has since moved on, leaving us with overcast—but dry—conditions that should continue for the rest of the day. A couple stray showers are possible again later tonight, but they’ll be much tamer than this morning’s soakers.
Tomorrow actually looks dry and partly sunny for a large chunk of the day, with the latest round of rain holding off until after 5 p.m. Temperatures will again rise to near 60 degrees (since last Saturday, all our highs have been between 58 and 60), with overnight lows only dropping to the 50-degree mark.
Lighter rain is likely both Saturday and Sunday, but with the bulk of the moisture staying north of Seattle, it won’t be nearly as wet as this past week. By Monday, with a ridge of high pressure sneaking in from the south, models indicate we could revert—er, flip-flop?—back to sunshine.
Nice try, November— but it’s going to take acrobatics more dramatic than that to live up to October’s stunning 180.
