UW News

Office of the Washington State Climatologist


October 25, 2023

UW experts offer hot takes on El Niño, weather and ocean temperatures

map of global oceans with red spots in Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean

Five University of Washington experts comment on the current El Niño, its effect on Pacific Northwest winter weather, as well as on regional and global ocean temperature trends.


February 10, 2021

Online tool displays Pacific Northwest mountain snow depth

colored lines sloping upward to Feb. 1

How’s the snow on Northwest mountains this year? Overall a little deeper than normal, but it depends where you look. A new collaboration between the University of Washington, the Northwest Avalanche Center lets you see how the current snow depth compares to past years for nine sites in Washington and two in Oregon.


February 8, 2019

Video: Washington’s state climatologist comments on Puget Sound snowstorms

flower with snow

Nick Bond, Washington’s state climatologist, comments on the unusual weather in Western Washington.


November 26, 2018

UW, Tableau create interactive tool to explore more than a century of Pacific Northwest weather observations

graph with upward trend

A new, free tool with temperature and precipitation records across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana as far back as 1881 lets users play around to discover significant trends. It also includes historical snow records for Washington state.


October 2, 2018

Video: Washington’s state climatologist predicts this will be an El Niño year

people cross-country skiing

Washington state climatologist Nick Bond explains what our upcoming El Niño winter means for the Pacific Northwest.


September 15, 2018

Video: Dry and warm — summer 2018 conditions in Washington state

Washington map with orange and red

The assistant state climatologist, Karin Bumbaco, looks back on an unusually hot and dry summer — the third-hottest summer that Washington state has experienced since 1895.


July 19, 2013

Nighttime heat waves quadruple in Pacific Northwest

Downtown Seattle at night

Nighttime heat waves — events where the nighttime low is unusually hot for at least three days in a row — are becoming more common in western Washington and Oregon.