Statistically speaking, the last week of July and the first week of August is the driest time in Western Washington. It’s why tourists teem, the Blues fly in, and hydros race on Lake Washington.
Since 1945, the first day of August (this year, Saturday) has only had measurable rainfall in Seattle six times, as officially recorded at Sea-Tac Airport (SEA).
And it’s only happened one time in the last 40 years, with 0.09″ recorded on Aug. 1, 2008.
While it’s by no means a sure thing, this Saturday could bring a few rain showers to the area. A front looks to approach the Washington coast on Friday evening and by Saturday morning, some showers of rain could move into the coast. With the push of westerly wind flow and some moisture, we could get a Puget Sound Convergence Zone to bring some light rain across parts of the North Sound, though even farther south in Seattle, we can’t rule out a few rain showers.
While a little light rain and cooler temperatures in the 60s to low 70s won’t spoil Seafair weekend, cloud cover and the altitude of those clouds does dictate the type of show the Blue Angels perform.
The “high show” is the full Blues performance and requires at least a cloud ceiling (height of the bottom of cloud deck) no lower than 8,000 feet. I still think there’s a good chance clouds will scatter on Saturday to allow for that show, but if not, the Blues have a “low show” and a “flat show” based on cloud height and visibility.
Right now, this doesn’t look to be a spoiler of the weekend, and by Sunday we should see rain chances diminish and more sunshine by afternoon.
There is another, more troubling feature of this forecast we’ll watch closely: As onshore wind flow increases with this weekend weather system, winds in central and eastern Washington are likely to kick up again with low relative humidity. This will result in very high fire danger once again east of the Cascade crest.
Stay with KIRO 7 Pinpoint Weather through the week as we update the forecast and timing of rain chances to get you ready for the big weekend.
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