Seattle’s unusual cool streak masked what was actually 8th-warmest June on record
Jul 15, 2026, 5:00 AM | Updated: 3:25 pm
A couple enjoys the sunset at Golden Gardens in Seattle. (Photo: @Wonderlane via Flickr Creative Commons)
(Photo: @Wonderlane via Flickr Creative Commons)
Last month was the eighth-warmest June on record at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) with an average daily high temperature of 73.7 degrees.
June included two days cracking the 90-degree mark, with the temperature hitting 91 degrees on June 15 and 90 degrees on June 23.
Meanwhile, 2015 holds the number one spot with an average daily high temperature of 78.9 degrees.
Combining both high and low temperatures throughout June, SEA finished the month with an average temperature of 64.0 degrees, the seventh-highest on record.
Cool streak gripped Puget Sound from late June into early July
But from June 25 until July 6, the Puget Sound region has had its share of marine clouds and overall cooler-than-average high temperatures. During the 11 days, the average high temperature was only 68.2 degrees. The average high around July 1 is in the mid-70s.
SEA finally soared to 85 degrees on July 6, breaking the cool streak.
Those 11 days were not really wet either. A total of just a tenth of an inch of rain fell into the airport’s rain gauge, and that rainfall fell on June 25 and 26.
Those 11 days simply were dominated by onshore airflow from the Pacific Ocean, bringing marine clouds that often but not always broke out into afternoon sunshine.
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Warmer temperatures and thunderstorm risk ahead for late July
July is historically the warmest month of the year.
The latest weather outlook toward the end of this month is for good odds of warmer and wetter-than-average conditions. This outlook reflects an overall weather pattern that includes more southerly flow aloft that brings warmer air northward along with a better chance of monsoonal moisture from the desert southwest.
This weather pattern translates to warmer-than-average temperatures and the threat of showers or thunderstorms, likely primarily from the Cascades eastward — not good news for those concerned about more wildfire starts.
The latest seasonal weather outlook for the rest of the summer also points to warmer-than-average temperatures and below-normal rainfall.
Yet, compared to the toasty temperatures across much of the rest of the nation so far this summer, western Washington’s summer weather to this point can be described as air-conditioned.
Ted Buehner is the KIRO Newsradio meteorologist. Follow him on X and Bluesky. Read more of his stories here.
