Seattle RainWatch has been alerting SPU to short-term heavy rainfall for over 4 years. Beyond the highly valued “heads up” functionality, RainWatch has also painted picture after picture of storm totals at a unique, neighborhood scale. The precipitation climatology that has emerged has helped SPU to both better manage its drainage system and to adapt […]

  It’s been looking likely for a few months, and this week NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center finally recognized it: models are predicting that an El Niño event will begin this summer or autumn (greater than 0.5 on the above chart). Granted, there is considerable uncertainty and CPC probabilities barely surpass 50%, but ocean temperatures and winds […]

  After four straight months of drier than normal conditions, Seattle finally got wet. Seatac recorded 6.11″ of rainfall, well above the 30-year normal (3.50″). Most of Western Washington hovered around 125% with the curious exception of the likely rain-shadowed Snoqualmie and Snohomish Valleys.   The greatest 24-hour rainfall total of the month occurred on the […]