Rare January sunshine to stick around in western WA this week
Jan 19, 2026, 10:15 AM
Sun shining near Seattle's Space Needle. (Photo courtesy of Cliff Mass Weather Blog)
(Photo courtesy of Cliff Mass Weather Blog)
Despite being in the middle of western Washington’s “gloomiest” month, sunshine has flooded most of western Washington last weekend, and is expected to continue through the week.
Sunshine is expected to be the predominant feature of western Washington’s forecast through the weekend, as Sunday, Jan. 25, is the only day with a 50% chance of rain or higher.
Despite the sun’s surprise appearance, highs are only expected to reach the low 50s, making this week cooler than last.
Outside of Sunday’s chance of rain, rain isn’t supposed to strike the region until Jan. 28, and it will most likely rain through the end of January into February.
Some meteorologists are calling this brief, dry, warm stretch of weather a “false spring.” A false spring usually hits western Washington in March, when the region is flanked by a series of surprisingly warm, dry days before cold weather and rainy conditions return.
Jan. 25 is the first 5 p.m. sunset for 2026.
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2025 was the third-warmest year on record, trailing 2023 and 2024
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) just released its annual Global Temperature and Precipitation Analysis for 2025, and the results continue recent trends.
The report highlighted that last year was the third-warmest year globally on record, just behind 2023 as the second warmest and 2024, the warmest ever. The analysis reviews weather and ocean data going back to 1850.
The report noted that the past decade was the warmest ever on record, continuing a trend going back to the 1960s. This past decade was 2.41 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 1850-1900 average, when the industrial age got underway in the late 1800s.
Western Washington was also a part of this overall warming trend. In fact, December at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) was the third-warmest on record. Globally, 2025 was nearly two degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century temperature average.
The atmosphere is not only warmer than ever, but the oceans are also warmer. In fact, the report noted that upper-ocean heat content reached an all-time record in 2025. The oceans store about 90 percent of the globe’s excess heat.
Contributing: Ted Buehner, KIRO Newsradio
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