The last 5.5 months have been extremely wet in the Northwest
Mar 20, 2017, 11:04 AM | Updated: 1:59 pm
If you needed any more proof that it’s been exceptionally wet in the Pacific Northwest this winter, Cliff Mass is here to put things into perspective.
Related: We came so close to the Seattle rainfall record
Over on his blog, the University of Washington climatologist writes that we have received a year’s worth of water in just over five months.
Mass writes:
Five and one-half months into the 2016-2017 water year, many Northwest stations have ALREADY received their total water year amounts. You got that right….if there was not another drop of rain or flake of snow for the next 6.5 months, these stations would have their full normal precipitation for the water year.
The amount of rain we’ve received between mid-October through mid-March has been consistently above normal in many areas, according to the National Weather Service. That’s especially true for the last month-and-a-half, which was extremely wet — it was the second wettest February on record.
And it’s not just Puget Sound-area residents who have had to deal with such a wet 5.5 months. Spokane is well above its normal amount of precipitation.
A map from NOAA shows that the majority of Washington state has received an above average amount of precipitation:
Mass points out that, “virtually the entire West Coast has higher than normal precipitation.”
