December 5, 2023

The Atmospheric River Has Arrived

By Gabrielle Castronover, Alec Weise, and Joseph Renalds

Good afternoon Huskies! 

We hope you are getting to class safely as an atmospheric river continues to dump its moisture on us. Over the past 24 hours we have recorded 2.5 inches of rain on campus. Since this rich plume of moisture has origins in the subtropics, it has brought with it a mild air mass and thus high snow levels.. It’s also  felt awfully balmy as of late and there’s data to prove this. Seattle hit 59 degrees yesterday,  breaking their previous record of 58 set in 2020 Normal highs are right around 50 this time of year.

We can attribute this heavy rain and warm temperatures to an atmospheric river that extends far out into the Pacific Ocean. We normally see fronts move through fairly quickly, but this one has stalled over the region allowing the southerly winds to continue bringing in the moisture. You can see it extending to the southwest on the satellite image below. 

This means that for the rest of the day we can expect even more rain. We are looking at another half-inch or so of rainfall to get to us before late tonight when the rain finally gives us a break. However, this break will be short lived as we will be getting some more rain coming to us on Thursday. Don’t fret though! Because Thursday’s rainfall will be nowhere near as intense as this past weekend.

Temperatures will also cool down back to average by as we finish up the final days of classes.

Have a great rest of you day Huskies and stay dry.