Weather in 2001: from a drought to record rainfall
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Drought in winter, record rain in summer, tornadoes in West Seattle and Bonney Lake: 2001 was one weird weather year.
It began with the second-driest winter in 106 years of records and ended with near-average precipitation overall for the year.
From October 2000 through March 2001, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport saw only 16.27 inches of rain, or 58 percent of average. The Cascade snowpack was at 50 to 65 percent of average, and river flows were at or near record lows.
Hydropower production was crippled and power rates soared as utility managers scrambled to the wholesale spot market to keep the lights on. Salmon-spawning areas dried out; migrating juvenile fish were disoriented by slack river currents and delayed their trips to the sea.
Normal precipitation returned in mid-March, just after Gov. Gary Locke declared a drought.
And by the end of the year, heavy rains and snowfalls triggered some of the most significant floods in Western Washington in two years. Snow in the mountains is 150 to 180 percent of average.
"We went from drought to flood. The annual total for precipitation comes out just plain old normal," said Cliff Mass, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington.
The reason was the shape of the jet stream. It split during most of last winter, taking Washington's usual precipitation north to Alaska and south to California.
But by mid-November 2001, the jet stream was parked on our back porch, barreling storm after storm into the coast and the Puget Sound region, Mass said.
"All of a sudden, the spigot was on, and we got plastered."
The season's strongest windstorm blasted through Western Washington on Dec. 13 and 14, with winds of 30 to 50 mph inland and 70 mph on the coast.
Five people were killed in Washington by weather events in 2001 and several more injured, according to the National Weather Service. Two people were killed in their cars by wind-dropped trees. Two people died in avalanches, and one person died trying to cross the East Fork of the Quinault River.
Aug. 22 saw nearly a month's worth of rainfall in one day, with 2 to 5 inches of rain along the coast and in the mountains.
And for the first time since 1998, tornadoes occurred in Western Washington. One touched down June 11, tossing a teacher and schoolchildren into the air in West Seattle. Another tornado plowed a more-than-two-mile path of destruction through the Bonney Lake area June 27, causing $100,000 in property damage but no injuries.
A funnel cloud was spotted in Thurston County on tax day, and large hail pelted Snohomish County on March 13.
The summer brought average to below-average temperatures, with the mercury never touching 90 degrees for the third year in a row at the airport. The warmest day of the year was Aug. 10, with 88 degrees.
The coldest day in Seattle was Feb. 7, when the temperature hit only 26 degrees.
Olympia saw one of the region's biggest temperature swings throughout the year, ranging from 91 degrees Aug. 10 to just 18 degrees Feb. 7.
The Puget Sound region saw its biggest snowfall Feb. 15 and 16, with 5 inches to a foot of snow overnight.
December 2001 summed up the year's overall-average profile.
Temperatures ended up a little lower than normal, but by less than a degree. Total precipitation for the year was 37.56 inches, compared with the average 37.19 inches.
The warmest day last month was Dec. 28, with 54 degrees, and the coldest was Christmas Day, with a low of 30.
The wettest day was Dec. 13, with 1.63 inches of rain. For December, 5.89 inches fell, near the average of 5.91 inches.
Drier weather settled after Christmas, which is typical for the region, a gift of the so-called Christmas ridge, as meteorologists call the high-pressure system that often parks over Puget Sound this time of year.
Lynda V. Mapes can be reached at 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com.