Seattle has dealt with more than 130 days of measurable rain
Apr 18, 2017, 1:29 PM | Updated: 4:31 pm
(File, Associated Press)
(File, Associated Press)
Tuesday marked the 139th day since Oct. 1 that Seattle has received measurable precipitation.
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The National Weather Service in Seattle reports that the previous highest total between Oct. 1 (the start of the water year) and April 30 was 137 days. That record was set in 1998-1999 and 2010-2011.
Though it is a lot of rain, there have actually been surprisingly few record-breaking days. A chart posted on University of Washington Climatologist Cliff Mass’ blog shows that while there have been many days with rain, few have reached daily records. Take the month of March, for example, where it rained for the bulk of the month, but hardly at record levels.
Western Washington isn’t alone in its struggle for more pleasant weather. Record-breaking precipitation has been recorded up and down the West Coast, including California, where media outlets have pointed out that the state went from an extreme drought to record rainfall.
Some are blaming climate change on the drastic change in weather. In The LA Times, a water expert and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California pointed out that the state’s dry spells are drier, and rainy periods even wetter.
“That is consistent with what the climate simulations are suggesting would be a consequence for California under a warming planet,” Jeffrey Mount told the Times.
But Cliff Mass argues that this winter was no extreme. There were just plenty of, what he calls, “modest events.”
Mass writes, “… the origin of the persistent precipitation is no mystery — it was due to a very persistent and anomalous upper atmospheric circulation pattern.”
He goes on to argue that if the constant precipitation were caused by global warming, we could expect to see trends in precipitation.
Mass concludes, “there is no scientific evidence or reason to believe that recent variations in precipitation have anything to do with global warming.”
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