June forecast trending wet as fire season approaches

SPOKANE, Wash.– It’s becoming less and less likely that we will see fire season start in the next few weeks. The wet, cool pattern we’ve been in for most of spring is expected to continue well into June.

Source: NOAA

The latest outlook from the U.S. Climate Prediction Center keeps the odds highest for wet and cool weather this month. Based on the forecast for the coming week, it looks like the CPC outlook is right on the money.

A couple of storms are on the way to the Inland Northwest in the coming seven days, bringing more moisture content than we typically see in our skies this time of the year. When this happens it means one thing: heavy rain. By the end of the weekend, some significant rain totals are possible across much of the Inland Northwest.

While the heavy rain will be more hit-or-miss in real life than in this computer simulation, the prospect of a half-inch to one inch of rain or even more this time of the year is a huge number. The average rainfall in Spokane in June is just 1.17 inches.

Lately even getting one inch of rain in Spokane has been difficult. The last month of June to get over one inch of precipitation was eight years ago in 2014. Since June rain makes up 50 to 60 percent of all the rain expected during the summer (June-July-August), the weather in June takes on some additional importance when it comes to fires, drought, and water supplies for the months to come. Unhealthy smoke days in Spokane are on the rise since 2014.

There’s no doubt that fire season will arrive eventually, but the longer the wet pattern lasts, the longer we will get to enjoy clean air this summer.

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