The majority of this month has been quite pleasant weather-wise. The sun and dry weather has served as a mood-booster for so many people in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it still begs the question…where is the rain?

Here is the Paine Field precipitation accumulation graph so far for the month of April.

With the exception of some trace rainfall on April 11, all the rainfall has occurred in the first few days of the month, amounting to just 0.35 inches. The normal amount for this period is 1.48 inches.

When looking at the same graphic for Sea-Tac, we get a similar story.

Except here, there has only been 0.01 inches of accumulated rainfall. You can hardly even see the green line on the graphic.

To put this into perspective, take a look at this tweet.

West coast rainfall for the month through yesterday:

San Diego: 3.59"
Los Angeles: 2.68"
Eureka, CA: 1.84"
San Francisco: 1.36"
Reno: 0.38"
Portland: 0.18"
Las Vegas: 0.16"
Phoenix: 0.08"
Tucson: 0.07"
Seattle: 0.01" <—— 🤯 #wawx #orwx #cawx #nvwx #azwx

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) April 13, 2020

Much of California has been getting hammered by storms and rainfall and has significantly more than us here in western Washington. Even areas of Arizona have more than Sea-Tac! Wow.

So why has our weather been so nice recently? It has been the result of a ridge of high pressure that has been acting as a block, preventing storms from making it to our region. (You can read more about this in Cliff Mass’ blog, found here.)

And, spoiler alert, this nice weather is likely to continue through the rest of the week.

Highs today should be in the mid-to-upper 60s for most of us.

Overnight tonight, clouds begin to increase as onshore flow (i.e. from west to east) develops. As a result, Wednesday morning has a chance to start cloudy. But as the figure shows below, clouds should burn off by the afternoon. Because of the cloudy start, Wednesday’s highs could be slightly lower than today’s.

Thursday and Friday look to be the warmest and nicest days of the week, with highs in the low 70s possible!

It should be perfect to go outside and go on bike rides, walks, and the like… of course maintaining social distancing 🙂

Some models/ensemble members of models show a chance for light showers on Saturday, but if anything falls, it likely won’t amount to much. Models are also suggesting the chance of some rainier weather next week, but it’s too far in advance to know for sure.

In the meantime, enjoy the sunny weather!