SEATTLE — Rain returned Tuesday after what KING 5 Senior Meteorologist Rich Marriott says was a record-setting 14-day stretch of dry weather in November.
Many Seattle residents welcomed a day that felt like "normal November"-- including Marriott.
"I'll tell you personally, I was yelling at the sun this weekend, saying 'Go away!'," Marriott laughed.
It comes during a season that is projected to be wet later in the year, though Marriott says La Niña must be considered in relation to other factors as well.
This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a La Niña year, bringing on a weather system in which the Northwest is expected to see a cooler, wetter winter.
"Out in the middle of the Pacific and the tropical Pacific, we can correlate the tendency for winters to be warm and dry or wet and cool, with what the sea surface temperatures are out there," Marriott said. "It's kind of a complex relationship and it's statistical in the sense that what happens out of there tips the dice, loads the dice to be one way or another."
Marriott says the pattern is more of a "nudging of the odds" toward the trend, as opposed to a guarantee -- and tends to be felt toward the end of December.
"Once we get on to the end of December is when we really expect to see the effects of La Nina kick in, where we would be seeing above normal precipitation, below average temperatures, but you have to keep in mind that all that does is affect the odds of it happening," Marriott said. "There's a lot of other factors out there we don't totally understand."