How Bad Has the Drought Been?

We have been in an extraordinary dry period--and this does not bode well for the summer. Here is some fascinating statistics given to me by Mark Albright (who used to be State Climatologist). For the period May 20 through the end of June, Sea-Tac this year was drier than ANY OTHER YEAR in the 116 yr record (see numbers below). On .18 inches of rain. I know...this is a somewhat artificial period...but the message is clear...we have been unusually dry.

Ten driest 20 May-30 Jun periods in Seattle:

2009 41 0.18
1934 41 0.28
1932 41 0.31
1925 41 0.36
1938 41 0.39
1924 41 0.50
1979 41 0.54
1911 41 0.55
1922 41 0.61
1918 41 0.63

What about June alone? This was the 7th driest June in 116 years.

10 lowest June precipitation amounts over the past 116 years from 1894 through 2009:

1922 30 0.03
1951 30 0.13
1908 30 0.15
1987 30 0.16
1925 30 0.16
1932 30 0.17
2009 30 0.18*
1934 30 0.23
1895 30 0.29
1940 30 0.34

The bottom line off all this is that we are going into the normal summer dry season with very low soil and surface "fuel" moisture values and the potential for big wildfires is greatly enhanced. The eastern slopes of the Cascades have also been dry and the climate prediction center is predicting increasingly severe conditions over eastern Washington (see graphic). This is really serious and people will have to be very careful with fire (and fireworks!).