It’s officially the wettest winter on record

Newsflash: It’s been a wet, wet six months.

In fact, it’s the wettest October-through-April on record at Sea-Tac Airport with 44.67 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

And there’s still another week left in April.

“We have had a really exceptionally wet winter here, mostly due to La Niña,” said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the Weather Service’s Seattle office.

The normal amount of rainfall for October through April is 30.38 inches. This season’s accumulation trumped the previous record-holder, which was 44.52 inches from 2016.

Olympia has been even wetter, with 56.94 inches of precipitation recorded since Oct. 1, which is nearly 15 inches above normal, according to the National Weather Service. This total ranks sixth all-time, with the top number of 67.39 inches recorded during this time period in 1999. So far in 2017, the service has recorded 28.84 inches of precipitation at Olympia Regional Airport, which is about 8 inches higher than normal levels, and about 10 inches less than the record precipitation recorded during this time in 1972.

La Niña typically means cooler and wetter weather, which has been the case in the Puget Sound area.

There have been 144 days of measurable rain since Oct. 1, which crushed the old record of 137 days that tied in 2010-11 and 1998-99.

Although you might feel sun-starved, the rain can’t last forever (right?).

The forecast shows at least a chance of showers through the week, but at least April isn’t setting any records.

As of Monday, 3.84 inches had fallen at Sea-Tac Airport. That is more than the month typically sees (2.71 inches), but it isn’t likely to rank in the top 10.

And because misery loves company, consider soggy Quillayute: it’s received nearly 10 feet (116 inches) of rain since Oct. 1. That’s more than double what we’ve seen.

It would take 40 years for that much rain to fall in Yuma, Arizona, the Weather Service said.

Here are a few other weather facts for the year:

▪ We didn’t see our first 60 degree day until April 4, which is far later than the usual Feb. 27.

▪ Rainfall in February and March took No. 1 with 15.56 inches, squeaking past the 2014 record of 15.55 inches.

▪ The average temperature for the first 100 days of the year was 48.2, down from last year’s 54.3 degrees.

This story was originally published April 24, 2017 at 1:18 PM with the headline "It’s officially the wettest winter on record."