Seattle’s sunny streak is about to snap, just in time for the summer solstice on Friday.
Even though you’ll have to say goodbye to the sunshine for a few days, it’ll do the area some good.
Tuesday will be the last warmer day this week with a sunny high of 75, according to the National Weather Service. Then temperatures will begin to cool to the high 60s Wednesday and Thursday as a weak system approaches, bringing a small chance of sprinkling rain, meteorologist Logan Howard said.
A bigger low-pressure system will bring a better chance for widespread rain around Western Washington on Friday into Saturday, Howard said. That rain has been overdue this month.
“June has been, actually, quite very dry,” Howard said Tuesday morning. By this time of the month, the Seattle area should have seen about three-quarters of an inch of rain. But Seattle-Tacoma International Airport “has not seen any measurable precipitation this month yet.”
Dry conditions like these can lend themselves to wildfires, Howard noted.
“That’s more concerning (because) our snowpack is already quite low. We have drought conditions in the Cascades, so we are concerned about fire weather season getting started,” Howard said. “I know we already have some fires in Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, but given this current trend, it won’t be long before we start to have more significant fire weather concerns.”
Washington’s drought conditions were worsening, state officials said earlier this month. They expanded the state’s drought emergency to areas of Western Washington, including portions of King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. The emergency warning excluded Seattle, Tacoma and Everett.
The state saw a poor snowpack generally this winter before warmer-than-normal temperatures began to melt that snow faster than normal, forcing the excess water to wash downstream and into the Pacific Ocean rather than remaining in reservoirs.
This weekend’s rain won’t get us caught up on the rain we’ve missed out on. Seattle may only see one-quarter of an inch of rainfall over the weekend, Howard said.
“It will curb concerns for a little while, but if we stay really warm and dry following the system for a while,” Howard said, “we’ll just get right back to where we are now.”
