With thunderstorms, flooding and a band of rain showers that dropped 1/4 inch of water in less than an hour, the Seattle region came close to breaking its record for rainfall Sunday.
As the storms trickled off Sunday evening, the region had seen a total of 0.56 inches of water, according to the National Weather Service for Seattle, stopping just short of breaking the record for June 5 of 0.63 inches set in 2012.
The drenching weather is thanks in part to yet another “atmospheric river” flowing in from the west, as well as an air mass that was particularly moist, the weather service said. Sunday ranked in the 95th percentile for how much moisture was in the atmosphere compared to a “normal” June 5.
A flood advisory was in effect Sunday afternoon and evening for Whidbey Island and parts of eastern Jefferson County, including Port Townsend. Those areas saw over an inch of rainfall in three hours.
Despite the rainy weekend, meteorologists are expecting sunshine for the first half of this week, with highs inching toward 70 degrees.
Still, forecasters are predicting that the adage of summer’s true start coming July 5 for the Pacific Northwest could be true this year, with a wetter and cooler June on tap. Things could dry out the rest of the summer, however, with a high chance of a less than average rainfall in July and August.
If you’re feeling like this has been a particularly dreary spring, you’re not imagining it. April in Seattle was the third-coldest in 45 years and May was the second wettest. By the end of May, we’d only glimpsed six hours of temperatures about 70 degrees. In 2016, we had 144.
Seattle reached a record 93 degrees on June 5 in 2016, NWS said. Sunday’s highest temperature didn’t reach that day’s low of 64 degrees.
Cities across western Washington saw up to 2 inches of rain Saturday. Thunderstorms hit the interior of Western Washington on Sunday night with heavy downpours, gusty winds and lightning.
The National Weather Service started Sunday with a sunny outlook, tweeting early that day that it was “unlikely” Seattle would beat its record of 0.63 inches of rainfall.
One hour and 1/4 inch of rain later, it changed its forecast.
“Sooo …. the band of heavier showers this past hour dropped more than a quarter inch of rain in less than an hour on Seattle,” NWS tweeted. “That changes the odds of a rainfall record significantly.”
The sun poked through the clouds again later Sunday afternoon, leaving the 2012 record in place.
