The talk of climate change has been very common lately. Add that to an El Nino pattern and people start recognizing these rapid weather shifts that seem very abnormal.
Let's just focus on rainfall. During the entire summer of 2018 (May-August) we only received 1 inch of rain. For most who've called Puget Sound home for many years, you're probably scratching your heads at that number.
Typically, a few storms will bring some rainfall during the summer. May's rainfall total in 2017 totaled 2.28 inches, more than doubling this summer's entire rainfall (which includes May).
An average summer would bring Puget Sound a little more than 5 inches. We're nowhere near that this year.
Now let's turn to the yearly rainfall. As of December 6, we're sitting at 29.78" of rainfall (we typically should be at 33.30"). Let's take a look at how that compares to the last few years:
2017: 43.55"
2016: 42.18"
2015: 35.84"
2014: 44.15"
No wonder this year stands out. We're roughly 40 percent lower in our rain gauge compared to last year. The driest year on record was back in 1952. That entire year SeaTac only picked up 23.68 inches of rain. Our yearly average is 37.49".
Looks like the storm moving in this weekend couldn't come at a better time. We'll give another update as we get closer to the end of the year.
