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Seattle has a reputation for being rainy, but it’s usually more about the number of wet days than actual precipitation inches. But for the past four years, those inches have been especially high—so high that we just completed the wettest four years in recorded history, reports the Seattle Times.
Our four-year total for 2014 through 2017 is 186.4 inches of rainfall, or an average of 46.6 inches per year. Seattle typically gets 37.5 inches of rain each year.
We’ve been experiencing longer stretches of both dry and wet than usual. We had the hottest and driest summer on record this year, just after the wettest six months on record from October through April.
Despite that long, dry summer, 2017 ended up being 10 inches above average, with 47.87 inches of rain.
Sea-Tac Airport, according to the Seattle chapter of the National Weather Service (NWS), had its ninth-wettest year on record. 48.87 inches of rainfall is more than 10 inches above normal.
For the 1st time in over 120 years of records Seattle had 4 years in a row with at least 44" of rain. 2014 48.50", 2015 44.83", 2016 45.18" and 2017 47.87". The combined total of 186.38" (36.42" above normal) is a record 4 year period in Seattle (old record 180.59 1995-98). #wawx
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) January 1, 2018
2018 has started off dry so far, with primarily sunny days since the new year began. Current NWS forecasts predict a little rain by the end of the week.
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