Seattle is getting back to normal - weather-wise, anyway. For anyone that's been living under rock, we broke a lot of records last week. Most people know that we had the highest daily high temperature ever recorded in Seattle (that would include back in the day when weather readings were taken at the downtown federal building instead of Seatac), a blistering 103 degrees F. But that's not really what made last week so unbearable - I think the misery was more related to another record that we broke. We had the highest low temperature ever recorded in Seattle, too. That is to say, the night of the record breaking heat, it never got below 70 degrees. Seattle wasn't able to cool down... probably for several reasons. We had a lot of air stagnation so the region got very little ventilation. Also, it was fairly humid - not by East coast standards, but there was enough moisture in the air to hold on to a lot of the heat of the day. And of course, we are having our long, intense summer days that don't allow a lot of nighttime cooling (the sunlight is more intense at higher latitudes in the summer - you'll get a sunburn quicker in Seattle than you will in Houston at the Summer Solstice). So we really had the perfect heat wave storm... something that only a meteorologist could get excited about :)
Luckily, the persistent pattern that brought the heat is breaking down and we'll be back to normal (mid 70's) soon... how long that will last is anyone's guess, though.
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