Haze, heat locked in for weekend, but your regular fall weather blustery days will be back
If we could just have the beautiful fall days without the smoky haze.
Alas, sweater weather and typical fall blustery rainy days will soon return to the area.
That’s according to the National Weather Service in its Seattle office’s long range outlook released Friday.
While the weekend is settling in to continue the trend of smoky and dry, the dry spell is set to end, with a 90 percent chance “for at least some light precipitation to begin to fall across the region by Friday next week, as well as an increase in winds across the region,” the office said in its release.
It added that “This is likely to be our first real taste of fall weather so far this season.”
But, with rains coming so soon after the lengthy dry stretch, it warned that “burn scar flash flooding/debris flow conditions will need to be monitored closely,” particularly for the state Route 2 area near the Bolt Creek Fire.
Estimates last week put the fire at 13,278 acres and 36 percent contained.
For Oct. 22-28, the service’s Climate Prediction Center’s forecast is calling for above-normal precipitation, with a slight risk of heavy precipitation for Western Washington and slight risk of high winds along the coast, with near-normal temperatures.
The forecast added that the “signal for above-normal precipitation continues into early November along with a return of above-normal temperatures to the coast. This suggests a sustained pattern of fall weather systems continuing into November.”
The reason our haze and heat has been sticking around, NWS explained Friday, is the high pressure ridge locked in and essentially “deflecting any weather away from us.”
This, coupled with a strong offshore flow among other factors, has been keeping skies hazy and temperatures much warmer than normal.
So far, the area has seen the warmest first two weeks on record for October, and second warmest for coast after 1987, according to the National Weather Service. Seattle’s average high was 72.9 degrees, 9.3 degrees above normal, while Olympia has averaged 74.6 degrees, nearly 11 degrees above normal for this time of year.
Highs over the weekend in the Seattle-Tacoma area were forecast to hit 80, with lows in the upper 40s.
Onshore flow is expected to return Monday, easing both the temperatures and haze.
This story was originally published October 15, 2022 at 10:31 AM.
