Tagged: Weather with Cliff Mass

Nevermind the predictable weather for this weekend (cloudy mornings, sunshine breaking through, temps in the 70's) -- KPLU weather expert Cliff Mass wants to talk about a strange phenomenon along the Washington coast.

The water temperatures on any of our coastal beaches -- along the Olympic coast, at Ocean Shores, Westport or Long Beach -- is typically in the 40s or low 50s, says Mass, a professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington.

That's cold.

A rain shower Sunday night dropped the first measurable moisture since July 23 at Sea-Tac Airport. That ended the dry stretch at 48 days, the second-longest on record. 

The record is 51 days set in the summer of 1951 at Sea-Tac.

"This is like losing a high-scoring basketball or football game by only 1 point....really frustrating!  There is a significant chance this will be the only rain Sea-Tac gets out of the frontal passage," KPLU weather expert Cliff Mass wrote in his blog.

The record for consecutive days without rain at Seatac is 51 days, set in 1951. To break that record, we'd need to see no rain through Tuesday.

"I think we are probably going to get to 49, but I don't think we'll get to 50 or 51," says KPLU weather expert Cliff Mass, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. "It's tragic. But we're going to be happy with the second longest streak of dry weather in Seattle history."

Hard to know what to root for – a record dry spell or the return of rain.

Our weather expert and University of Washington professor Cliff Mass says the race is on, and it’ll be close.

Western Washington is wrapping up its driest August ever, says KPLU weather expert Cliff Mass, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington.

And, with no precipitation in sight for the next two weeks, Mass says we may even break an all-time streak for the most consecutive days without rain. The record is 51 days, set in 1951.

"We are thirty-eight days in, right now," he says. "So, we certainly have a shot at the big record."