I will be giving a talk on March 16th at 7:30 PM in Kane Hall on the UW campus on the history, science, and technology of weather forecasting as a fundraiser for KPLU. I will give you an insider's view of the amazing story of of weather forecasting's evolution from folk wisdom to a quantitative science using supercomputers. General admission tickets are $25.00, with higher priced reserved seating and VIP tickets (including dinner) available. If you are interested in purchasing tickets, you can sign up here.
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At 1 PM today, Seattle weather history was made.
Seattle has received enough precipitation since October 1 to make it the wettest winter in Seattle history.
The water year starts on October 1 and this makes a lot of sense here in the Northwest, since our summers are very dry and the real rain usually does not begin until mid to late October. October 1-March 1 encompasses our meteorological winter and is not an arbitrary period.
Let me show you the numbers provided by Logan Johnson, the head meteorologist at the Seattle office of the National Weather Service.
Here are the record October 1-March 1 totals, with this year's total ending at 1:56 PM.
Water year to date (Oct 1-Mar 1)
- 38.22 2015/16 (as of 1:56 PM)
- 38.19 1998/99
- 37.96 1950/51
- 36.39 1995/96
- 36.06 1955/56
A plot of the cumulative precipitation at Seattle Tacoma Airport (below) shows that we now have about 13 inches more than normal in the water year, which is very large, of course. The second figure shows the daily rainfall and the associated records each daily (green marks). One is struck by the high frequency of rain this winter and the fact that only a handful of days beat daily records. Slow and steady won the race.
Think the substantial precipitation is over? No way. Here is the forecast for the next 72 hr. Black color indicates 2-5 inches.
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