The rainy season has officially started. How does it measure up to last year?

Bellingham entered its official rainy season Monday after its second-driest summer on record.

Only 4.1 inches of rain fell during the five-month period from May through September, which was second only to the summer of 2017 among dry spells since record-keeping began in 1949, said Chris Burke at the National Weather Service in Seattle.

More than half of that rain, 2.61 inches, fell in September.

Total rainfall from Oct. 1, 2017, to Sept. 30, 2018 — a period that meteorologists call the “water year” — was 37.29 inches, according to measurements at Bellingham International Airport.

It was Bellingham’s 11th wettest rainy season, Burke said.

In 10th place was the rainy season of 2016-2017, he said.

For the third straight year, at least a trace of rain has been recorded in Bellingham on the first day of the water year.

Nearly half an inch of rain — .44 inch — fell Monday.

In addition, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is still calling for a strong chance of an El Niño winter, which usually means warmer than normal weather for the Northwest.

Long-range forecasts see a slight to equal chance of a drier winter, he said.

This story was originally published October 2, 2018 at 5:00 AM.