WASHINGTON — Washington has been short on rainfall at the start of fall, with many areas west of the Cascades seeing their driest start to October since 2022.
After a very active wildfire season, many fires across the state are still smoldering.
One of those is the Garda Falls Fire north of Mount Rainier, which has been burning since late August in rugged wilderness near a glacier.
On Friday, after a dry, windy Thursday and soaring temperatures, the fire flared up again.
A large plume of smoke was visible from dozens of miles away, including parts of the Puget Sound region.
The fire’s resurgence doesn’t threaten any structures, and it will likely keep burning until we get enough rain to put a real dent in it. But it’s also another reminder of just how dry parts of the Northwest remain.
And there’s no sign of a soaking rain anytime very soon!
A passing front will bring some rain showers into early Saturday before we get some clearing. Another weather system Monday could bring a few showers, especially around the mountains, but again, this doesn’t look like the kind of widespread, soaking rain that would make much of a difference. The rest of next week looks quiet and mostly dry.
This kind of early-fall dry spell isn’t extremely unusual. October is a transition month around here, and the storm track doesn’t always flip from summer to persistent fall rain all at once.
This year, unusually warm waters in parts of the North Pacific may also be helping support a pattern favoring stronger high pressure near the West Coast, although day-to-day weather patterns ultimately determine where our storms go.
And, of course, the dry pattern will eventually break. As we get closer to November, climatology increasingly favors wetter weather.
November is Seattle’s wettest month of the year on average, and it’s typically when the Pacific storm track becomes much more active across Western Washington.
So while October may be running dry, we’re heading into the part of the calendar when Mother Nature usually starts making up the difference.
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