On Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004, amidst blazing blue skies, Seattle soared to a daily record high of 80 degrees. Not surprisingly, nary a drop of precipitation fell in the rain gauge at Sea-Tac Airport. Since then, however, seven Easters have come and gone—and all have featured rain.
Until now.
Possibly.
When it comes to dry weather on holiday weekends in Seattle, it seems there’s always a caveat, and this Easter weekend is no exception. At the very least, we’ll get off to a great start, with mostly sunny skies expected on Saturday. Highs will come close to 60 degrees—drastically warmer than today’s high of 49, and tomorrow’s forecast high of 53. With wall-to-wall sunshine and calm winds, Saturday will be a near-perfect spring day (“perfect” belongs to Easter of ’04—who can find fault in 80 degrees and sunny skies?).
It’s Easter Sunday, of course, when the forecast gets a bit more muddled. Moisture is poised to move up from the south sometime between mid-day Sunday and early Monday, depending on which weather model you believe in. The American model has rain moving into the Sound during the late afternoon on Sunday, which would extend our streak of wet Easters to eight. On the other hand, the European model holds off on bringing any rain into the area until the calendar flips to Monday—meaning Sunday would be the first dry Easter in Seattle in eight years.
Either way, Easter is likely to be on the warm side, with temperatures rising into the lower 60s ahead of our next rainmaker—whenever it arrives. Monday and Tuesday will feature cloudy skies and more rain, with high temperatures falling back into the mid-50s. We’ve been so cold in recent weeks that even the mid-50s seems somewhat warm, but for this time of year, it’s actually pretty normal.
Just like rain on Easter, apparently.
