Time to pull out the sweaters? Say goodbye to summer weather
Sep 13, 2017, 5:58 AM | Updated: 11:40 am
(File, Associated Press)
Our summer weather is likely gone for good.
The National Weather Service notes that Monday may have been the last 80-degree day of the year in and around Seattle.
The current forecast calls for highs in the mid-to-low 70s for the next several days. That includes a dip next Monday, when temperatures won’t get above 65.
Summer officially ends on Sept. 22.
It’s a summer that hasn’t disappointed when it comes to dry, sometimes uncomfortably warm temperatures. We had one of the driest summers on record with only .02 inches of rain falling in July and August. Daily highs didn’t dip below 70 degrees between the end of June and Sept. 9.
Of course, the nice weather has come with a downside. Fires both locally and from hundreds of miles away impacted our our air quality for weeks. A haze from fires in Washington to Montana, as well as Oregon, lingered through last week. Wildfire ash fell as far west as the Olympic Peninsula.
RELATED: Places in Washington with some of the cleanest air
University of Washington Climatologist Cliff Mass notes the cumulative precipitation at Sea-Tac Airport for the past six months was actually above normal. But that is due to a wet spring. He writes that since then, Seattle’s precipitation has “flatlined.”
“Earlier in the summer (before late August) this is not that unusual, but having nothing for the first half of Sept. is not a common occurrence.”
Mass says our region’s dry streak will end Sunday.
“Dry conditions will continue through Saturday, so enjoy the nice weather while you can,” he writes.
Sunday will bring what Mass calls the “first substantial frontal system” to the area in months.
Forecast precipitation this Sunday night and Monday is greater than what what has fallen over the whole rest of the summer. #WAWX pic.twitter.com/c1WDwF5OEW
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) September 13, 2017