Seasonal summer gets briefly soggy

SEATTLE - With some steady rain at SeaTac and around the region, we're closing out 15 dry days in a row. The last time we saw measurable rain at SeaTac was on July 22nd. Since then we've had a few pockets of drizzle, but nothing like this. It's much needed rain, as July and August are our two driest months of the year.

Today's steady light rain will be confined mostly to the morning. Once the front passes, we'll still see a few on/off passing showers, but any steady rain will be confined to the convergence zone that looks to set up between Seattle and Everett. High temps today will be about 10-12 degrees cooler than we had on Wednesday, as many places will struggle to get to 70. 

Wednesday was our 26th day of 80 or warmer temps, which is spot on for normal for what Seattle sees in a typical year. The good news for heat lovers is that many more days of 80+ temps are still likely for our area before we cool off for good starting in late September. We've had 2 days 90 or above and 4 is normal for a Seattle summer. I don't think we'll see too many more of those. The latest we've ever seen a day 90+ in Seattle weather history was on September 22nd 1990. 

The rain is short lived, but the weather pattern that brough the raindrops looks to stay in place. High pressure off-shore with weather systems riding over the north end so we could see another weak system move through late Friday/early Saturday and perhaps bring some more passing showers.

This kind of weather pattern does keep our temps pretty mild too. With a lot of days with morning clouds and nice afternoon sunshine. The normal high temp for this part of summer, 77 degrees, is also the warmest average high temperature we ever see around Puget Sound. 

Sunday into most of next week looks seasonably dry and some morning clouds and nice afternoon sunshine with a few days getting close to, or just above, 80 degrees. 

-Tim Joyce