Olympia rain drowns old October record

“The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.”

Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 would have had plenty of time for mischief in October, officially the wettest October Olympia has seen.

Even before trick-or-treaters hit the street, the rain gauge in Olympia had reached 11.97 inches of precipitation in October. The old October record for Olympia was 10.72 inches, set in 2003.

Olympia receives 4.60 inches in a normal October. November is historically the wettest month of the year, said Chris Burke, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle, with 8.63 inches of rain for Olympia.

Olympia is already well into the “water year,” Burke said.

Most of Washington has had more than twice its normal rainfall, and much of eastern Washington has had more than four times normal rainfall, according to meteorologist Cliff Mass, in his blog.

Whether the extra-wet weather will continue isn’t certain, but the region is forecast to enter a La Nina pattern, which is typically a little wetter and colder, Burke said.

“There’s more confidence in colder than in wetter,” he said.

“It’s not a particularly strong looking signal,” he said. Western Washington is on the edge of both the cold and the wet forecast.

“All things being equal, you expect a reversion to the mean,” he said, “but if we have a typical winter from now through February, it will be wetter than normal.”

It’s too early to forecast for a white Christmas, but chances — while low overall — are slightly enhanced this year because of La Nina, Burke said.

“It doesn’t really snow much anymore. There’s been a lot of warming going on,” he said.

This story was originally published October 31, 2016 at 3:33 PM with the headline "Olympia rain drowns old October record."