View of Seattle from a Washington State Ferry
Less than a week after State declared a Drought Emergency, lawmakers received more unsettling news about the weather forecast.
“The weather that started in May has continued well into summer” forget the 4th of July, summer arrived in Western Washington two months ahead of schedule.
“There doesn’t look like any immediate relief in sight.”
State Climatologist Nick Bond testifying before a joint committee on Water & Drought in Olympia on Monday “Maybe no severe heatwaves, but above normal temperatures and minimal, if any precipitation.”
The numbers confirm it: temperatures have been hotter than normal during the first 6 months of 2023; among the hottest on record.
“Water temperatures go from below normal to above normal and they track that way throughout the summer” Megan Kernan with the Department of Fish & Wildlife talked about the dangers of warm water “But in this sugar-high May period we’ve been seeing above average reports of dead sturgeon in the Columbia River.”
Last week, Washington declared a drought emergency in 12 countries.
“Snow is our third reservoir” State Senator Judy Warnick hoped for some better news as the conversation shifted toward the El Nino weather pattern expected this winter “I’m quite confident that there’s going to have a subpar snowpack” but State Climatologist Nick Bond offered only a ripple of hope “We’ve had a couple of strong El Nino’s in which we had terrible skiing, but we did have a fair amount of rain.”
Until then, warm & dry well into fall.
