Rain, rain here to stay

Another drenching June rainstorm will arrive late Thursday evening, punctuating the 19th straight day of measurable rainfall in Vancouver.

“It’s not your typical pattern for late spring,” said Steve Starmer, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Portland. “We’ve had a very active, moist jet stream coming across the Pacific.”

Forecasters say we may get a break in the onslaught of rain by Saturday. Even then, forecasters say the sky will be “mostly cloudy” with a high temperature of about 70 degrees in the Portland-Vancouver area.

Beyond that, forecasters are hedging their bets.

The weather service’s seven-day outlook, updated Wednesday afternoon, uses the exact same verbiage to describe the forecast for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Portland-Vancouver:

“Partly cloudy with a slight chance of showers.”

If it rains again on Friday, it will mark the longest consecutive string of rainy days in Vancouver since we experienced 27 consecutive days of measurable precipitation from Dec. 17, 2008, through Jan. 12, 2009. Much of that fell as snow.

Vancouver totaled almost three-quarters of an inch of rain through 5 p.m. Wednesday.

At Cougar, nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Range, the weather service reported 3.69 inches of rain had fallen over 30 hours concluding at 4 p.m. For perspective, that nearly equals Vancouver’s rainfall for the entire month of May.

“It’s been pouring nonstop,” said Lindsey Campbell, a bartender at the Cougar Bar and Grill.