Lummi Island Rainfall DataLummi Island Rainfall Data39 Years of Rainfall Data from 4 Island Stations
Regional contextOlga, Orcas Island Rainfall Data
Washington Precipitation
Rain and Wind regimesRain Shadows
Wind DirectionsAugust 10, 2019Rainwater Catchment ProgramElizabeth Kilanowski -Raincoast Scientific
Tuttle Lane Rain Gauge
Daily Data Sheet
Created an electronic Record
Wrote Python computer programsfor analysis and graphs
West Shore Farm Rain Gauge
Annual Lummi Island Rainfall from 1980
Wet Month Rainfall Trends from 1980
Dots showmonths
Lines aresmoothed trends
Dry Month Rainfall Trends from 1980
Dots showmonths
Lines aresmoothed trends
Four Decades of Monthly Rainfall Trends
Bars indicateaverage trend foreach month overfour decades
First decade is fromone station
Olga, Orcas Island Rainfall From 1895
Bellingham Airport Temperatures From 1948
Washington Average AnnualPrecipitation(inches)
Great Variation Seattle – 36Tacoma - 41Forks – 119Sequim – 16Aberdeen – 84San Juan – 20Lummi Island – 35
MinnesotaSt. Paul, MN – 32Ely, MN - 29
Most storms in the PNW come off the Pacific Ocean
Rain hits the coastal mountainsOlympics – Vancouver Island
Drops precipitation and formsa rain shadow over the San Juans
Winter brings Fraser River Air -Cold, dry and continental
https://atmos.uw.edu/current-weather/northwest-radar/
Another Rain Shadow Example
Shifting winds relatedto climate change isan active area of research
Jet Stream – Polar Vortexwavy wind pattern
Warmer arctic – meansless temperature contrastbetween high and low latitudes.
The Take away:
Lummi Island may be getting a little wetter in the wet months and dryer in the dry months.
But there is a lot of natural variability in precipitation in thePacific Northwest because of the influence of the ocean.
Wind shifts may bring more or less rain to the Island over thecoming decades.
Top Related