Sunny, warm June evidence of ‘unusual’ Pacific Northwest summer
Jun 29, 2015, 8:56 AM | Updated: 9:13 am
There were only a handful of cloudy days in June around the Pacific Northwest. (AP file photo)
(AP file photo)
Seattle gets its June gloom reputation for good reason.
Historically, June has always been a cloudy, gray month. So what happened?
“Typically by this time in June, we’ve had in the order of 15 to 16 cloudy days,” University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Professor Cliff Mass told KIRO Radio. “Right now, we’ve only had four. We’ve had a lot of sun, much more sun than normal.”
Mass crunched the numbers on his blog and so far we’re seeing temperatures a few degrees above what’s considered normal.
“It looks like this will be a warm summer. Temperatures in the Pacific Ocean have warmed up substantially,” he said. “We’ll probably see a summer that will be 3 or 5 degrees warmer than normal. So definitely warmer, sunnier than normal.”
In fact, Eastern Washington is getting the brunt of our unusually hot weather. Over the weekend, the entire region was about 100 degrees, many cities had temperatures above 110 degrees, and the observation site in Sunharbor (near Kennewick) reported 120 degrees.
Mass says if that reading is true, it would become the all time record temperature ever observed in Washington state. The previous record was 118 degrees in Aug. 1961 at Ice Harbor Dam.
If you’re uncomfortable, the good news is Mass says this summer weather is sort of an anomaly.
“There are some unusual things happening in the Pacific Ocean that’s causing high pressure to build over the eastern Pacific and that’s what’s causing this usually nice weather, this persistent high pressure,” Mass said. “There’s no reason to think this is a permanent feature. Next year, we could go back to our normal June gloom situation.”
But for now, you can brag to your friends that we’re experiencing the sunniest month in Northwest history.
KIRO Radio’s Colleen O’Brien contributed to this report.
