I have been teasing a friend recently transplanted here in Seattle about the infamous summer of ’97 — the year Seattle didn’t really have a summer. Just rainy crap. Mostly it was just a boogie man story that I didn’t really believe would come true again. But, wow, this feels familiar.

1997 » WET, GRAY JULY FOLLOWS THE NORM SUNNY FOURTH JUST A MEMORY WHERE’S SUMMER?(News) – Subscription – Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Now that I’m scared by my own boogie man, it’s time to look at the numbers. Was 1997 really so bad? At just over 7 1/2 inches of rain, it was, indeed, the wettest summer we’ve had since. But we’ve had a few rainy summers over the years here in the PNW and ’97, at first glance, appears to be part of a regular trend of summer wetness over the past 10 years (btw, I couldn’t dig up the monthly totals for 2006 but I don’t think it was a summer record breaker). You know that about Seattle, of course. I know that. But somehow we forget.

However, 1997 does deserve its place in my memory as a dismal, awful time. What really set 1997 apart was it’s monotony — you can see it best in the table below. It’s the only year in the past decade when we were rained on with more than an inch of precipitation in every single “summer” month. Even in 2001 — the 2nd wettest summer in the list — we got at least a September reprieve.

So is 2007 shaping up to be another dismal summer? I sure hope not. But if it does, we really shouldn’t be surprised.