Puget Sound region primed for ‘very stormy November’ as rainy weather arrives in force
Nov 4, 2021, 2:08 PM | Updated: Nov 5, 2021, 5:57 am
Rain in Seattle. (MyNorthwest photo)
(MyNorthwest photo)
November in the Puget Sound region is already off to a rainy start, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.
Records fall amid Puget Sound region’s first storm of the season
According to KIRO 7 meteorologist Nick Allard, rain and windy conditions that kicked off the week are expected to continue through the weekend. Friday should be on the breezy side with spotty afternoon showers after morning rain. Saturday will see more heavy rain and gusty winds, Allard says, with the chance for that wind to top 45 mph around Puget Sound and be even stronger at the coast and north.
“It will be blustery and feel like fall,” he noted in his forecast Thursday.
That will likely become the norm for much of the month, says University of Washington climatologist Cliff Mass, predicting an “extraordinarily active” run of weather in the weeks to come.
That will largely be the result of strong low-pressure areas “or midlatitude cyclones off the Pacific Ocean,” he detailed in an early-week blog post, warning of a “very stormy November ahead.” While there’s no guarantee we’ll see those weather systems move further inland, Mass does note that it would “not be shocking if one of the storms moves into a favorable position to give Seattle or Portland a major windstorm.”
“To really gust around Puget Sound, one needs a strong low-pressure center moving southwest to northeast across the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula or the southern section of Vancouver Island,” he described. “If you see that, check your battery supply.”
Season’s first mountain snow this weekend heralds the onset of fall
Historically, November is the wettest month of the year in the Seattle area. This year’s iteration may prove to be extreme even by that standard, given that the last time it rained every day in the first week of November in Seattle was in 2005.
Should that continue on past the first seven days of the month, the region could enter into even more rarified air.
“The record for the most consecutive days with measurable precipitation to start the month of November in Seattle is from 1963 when it rained the 1st 19 days of the month,” the National Weather Service said on Twitter.
