First 8 p.m. sunset to arrive in Seattle after day of wild weather

Thursday night will be Seattle's first 8 p.m. sunset of the year, but getting there has been anything but smooth sailing.

The region dealt with lightning, hail, frost, snow and rain Wednesday evening. A hailstorm hit Seattle in the afternoon as a waterspout appeared over Puget Sound near Magnolia.

Logan Howard, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle, said reports of quarter-inch hail rolled in around 2:45 p.m. The waterspout, which is like a tornado over water, was reported around 3 p.m. about 3 miles west of Magnolia.

Tornadic waterspouts are simply tornadoes that form over water, or move from land to water," according to the National Weather Service. "They have the same characteristics as a land tornado. They are associated with severe thunderstorms, and are often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning."

Howard said a strong cold front moved into the region, causing the hail and spout, a rarity in the Pacific Northwest. There were also reports of thunder.

"We had a strong cold front move through last night, and then, basically, what happened was we had a lot of cold air … follow behind it," Howard said. "And so that creates some upper-level instability, which allows kind of air to rise.

Showers and thunderstorms remained possible in Seattle until late Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Freezing temperatures Thursday morning will likely come before the sunset milestone, and that could mean frost, especially on the east side of Seattle and in South Puget Sound, weather service meteorologist Matthew Cullen said.

Thursday and Friday will dry out but remain cold before things begin to warm up again, Cullen said. Temperatures will rise into the lower to mid-60s Saturday while the skies remain fairly dry.

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This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 9:34 AM.