Seattle logs record string of 70+ degree days

NW Cable News ^ | 08/25/03 | Staff Writer

[bedolido]

SEATTLE - Seattle tied a record Monday for 49 straight days of temperatures of 70 degrees or higher.

Meteorologist Jeff Rood with the National Weather Service says it's "iffy" whether the record will broken. The forecast high for Tuesday is only 71 degrees and a few clouds over Sea-Tac Airport could make all the difference.

But if the string holds, the forecast is for warmer weather so those 70s days could run into September.

The old record was set in 1958 in roughly the same time period - from July 9 to Aug. 26.

Rood says Seattle temperatures have been a couple of degrees above normal this summer, but it's not that far out of the normal variation. He notes some parts of the country have been much hotter.

It's also been dry in Seattle. Precipitation at Sea-Tac since June first has totaled less than an inch - 0.89.

The driest June through August was 0.84 in 1987. Records at the airport go back to 1945. Taking a look at record from the Federal Building in downtown Seattle, which started in 1891, the driest June through August was 0.65 in 1919.

[shotgun]

You must have visited on the real nice days and suckered in...

I have always said that a Seattlite best friend is their travel agent. People can only take som much 54 degrees, rain and overcast that they have got to get out of town for awhile.

[radiohead]

...but in Seattle we get to enjoy and discern the differences between mist, sprinkle, drip, drizzle, rain, shower, downpour and more...

Yep. I moved here in 2001. Learned that umbrellas were for sissies. I have a light coat w/a hood and a heavy coat w/a hood. I don't need no stinkin' umbrella.

I was catalog shopping for some coats yesterday (some girls like shoes, I like coats...) and all I could think of was - this will smell when it gets wet, this won't hold up to the rain, this is nice - does it have a hood...

[Eala]

I have always said that a Seattlite best friend is their travel agent. People can only take som much 54 degrees, rain and overcast that they have got to get out of town for awhile.

I've had my times (90 days without any sun is too long), but I've never taken a trip to get away from the climate for a while. Maybe it's the Scottish blood; toured Scotland one cold, drippy October and everywhere they apologized for the lousy weather. We just kept telling them, "Hey, we're from Seattle and it's just like home!"

[Publius]

Ping. New Puget Sound FReeper Chapter material.

[djf]

Don't forget to mention that our state gastropod, the banana slug, is ravenously carnivorous.

[shotgun]

You sound like my good friend Mr. Morgan who still lives there. He loved to talk about his scottish heritage. If you have frequented the Highland events over there and play the pipes you probably know him. He looks like Santa Claus....

I was raised in Vancouver, USA (Washington) and moved overhere in 1978. When we moved to Bothell we could never get used to the weather. We actually did more when we went there to visit than we did after we moved there. It was always so depressing that we just decided to stay home once we fought all the traffic....

Except when we went to Husky Football games that is. Football the way it was meant to be played...

[radiohead]

I came up for a school visitation weekend in March. It was about 40/50 degrees maybe. The previous week I had visited Madison, WI. It was probably 10 degrees w/snow on the ground.

While I had recently spent 2 years in Ann Arbor and knew what winter was, at that time I was living in DC and had not missed winter too much. Madison was a shock and needless to say, Seattle won hands down. Personally, I can do w/o the sun everyday.

[CyberCowboy777]

This beautiful summer is almost up and I dread the coming darkness.

I have lived in the SW Washington/Portland, OR. area for 7 years and have yet to be conditioned to all the rain.

And of course when I say rain I mean 7 or 8 months of perpetual drizzle broken by the occasional freezing rain or downpour.

I would trade it, but the money is good.

[Eala]

Don't forget to mention that our state gastropod, the banana slug, is ravenously carnivorous.

We have banana slugs here? Where??? (I remember seeing them often enough in the Santa Cruz mountains -- never saw the Zayante humpbacked slug, though.) All I've seen here range from jet black to a yellow-brown, some with leopard spots.

[Publius]

Gut them, soak them in vinegar to remove the slime, and then deep fry them. M-m-m-m, good.

[shotgun]

Average Seattle weather; 54, Cloudy and rain which is perfect for storing my fine wines in the crawl space under the house.....

Did you know that Seattle is the sun glasses sales capital of the world. It is because the first thing people buy when the sunshines are sunglasses but then they take them off the next day, lose them and have to buy them again when the sunshine again!! True Story....

I was also fortunate to have a larged covered patio to keep the rain from ruining my BBQ's.

[beelzepug]

"...we get to enjoy and discern the differences..."

I like "chance of" and "occasional". As in, "Chance of light drizzle in the morning, followed by occasional sun-breaks, with showers likely in time for the afternoon commute."
Variety is the (wet) spice of life.

[Eala]

You sound like my good friend Mr. Morgan who still lives there. He loved to talk about his scottish heritage. If you have frequented the Highland events over there and play the pipes you probably know him. He looks like Santa Claus....

I have not met him, but LOL! Several years ago I had an audience with a mayor in P.R.China; my host's wife called during dinner to say she'd just seen it on TV and "He looks so nice... like the Christmas Man!"

[djf]

I've seen them up in the hils near Gold Bar. But you're right, most of the ones I see around the house are the generic pain-in-the-butt regular slimy brown types. When I first moved here in '79, I had a window that opened in the bathroom, I lived in a second floor apartment. Get home from work, head into the bathroom, and leisurely hanging out in my tub was definately a banana, golden yellow, about an 8 or 9 incher.

I still get shivers thinking about it, and never took a bath in that tub again!

[Eala]

Gut them, soak them in vinegar to remove the slime, and then deep fry them. M-m-m-m, good.

The specialty of a friend of mine: Slug Tacos!

[Eala]

Or did you mean the liberals?

[Mr. Mulliner]

Seattle was my home for 18 years (when I wasn't living in Asia) and I completely appreciate what I consider the greatest weather I've ever lived in.

I can easily shock people here in middle Tennessee by telling them that they get 50% more rain than Seattle does. And temperatures? No comparison. Give me 65 degrees and cloudy any day over 90 degrees and high humidity.

[beelzepug]

Ah, but monsieur, served on a croissant, tres magnifique!

[Publius]

I meant the slugs.

Liberals require less cooking. They aren't that tough.

[djf]

I'd eat a spider or a cockroach before one of these..