Seattle experienced warmest and driest summer ever recorded in 2017

By Christine Clarridge
22 September 2017
(The Seattle Times) – This summer in Seattle was the warmest and driest ever recorded.For those of us living in the Puget Sound region, it might not come as a surprise. In fact, it’s been a year full of extremes, with numerous daytime high records broken, one of the wettest rainy seasons and some of the haziest, smokiest days in memory from wildfires that blanketed the Pacific Northwest.But this summer was special. Meteorologist Doug McDonnal, of the National Weather Service in Seattle, said the stretch from June 21 (the first day of summer) to Sept. 21 (the last full day of summer) is going down in the record books as being tied for the hottest since 1894 — when record-keeping began — with an average high temperature of 78.6 degrees, about 4 degrees warmer than average.Tied for first place is 1967, when the average high was also 78.6 degrees, according to the weather service.Early Friday morning, the weather service said 2017 had the hottest summer, but that was amended when the overnight numbers were calculated, McDonnal said.(For those interested, third, fourth and fifth places are held by 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively.)This summer was also the driest on record, according to the weather service, with just 0.52 inches of rain, beating out 1910 at 0.58 inches. The region usually gets 2.25 inches of rain in that three-month period. [more]

We just experienced warmest and driest summer ever recorded in Seattle