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We were drier than average for much of this winter, but February has proved to be a notable exception.

Here are a few interesting statistics from around the region:

Seattle has had multiple February days with over 1.50″ of rain, the first time this has happened on record. Total rainfall for this month is around 7.84″, the record rainfall for February is 9.11 inches. The heaviest rain is expected to shift south into northern California over the next couple days, but we should still have enough precipitation this month to easily break the record… perhaps we’ll end in double digits!

A new daily rainfall record was set at Hillsboro yesterday (2/15) when they picked up 1.23″ of rain, beating the 1.22″ set in 1961.

The Olympic Rain Shadow has been in full-force… Jefferson Creek in Mason County and Port Townsend in Jefferson County saw 24-hour rainfall totals of 6.86″ and 0.08″ ending late last night (2/15), even though they are only separated by 41 miles.

And there have been plenty of landslides around Western Washington due to saturated soils. The biggest one blocked westbound i-90 near Issaquah, but there have been others in Puyallup and Maple Valley. Thank you Mark Ingalls of Ingalls Weather for alerting us of these!

http://komonews.com/news/local/landslide-blocks-westbound-i-90-in-issaquah

http://komonews.com/news/local/slide-closes-maple-valley-highway

Radar shows that it’s dry in Seattle, but it’s still raining like crazy here in NE Portland. I think this band of incoming rain is stronger than modeled, but the heaviest stuff should nevertheless be out by late afternoon.