Originally published Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 5:47 PM

As US sizzles in summer heat, Seattle shivers

Since summer started a month ago, cloudy and cool weather have been prominent in Western Washington.

Associated Press

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SEATTLE —

Since summer started a month ago, cloudy and cool weather have been prominent in Western Washington.

UW professor of atmospheric sciences Cliff Mass says the unusual cloud coverage over Western Washington is coming from a trough that has been consistently sitting on the eastern Pacific.

He says the result has been the inverse of July's usual pattern. Instead of wet and cool at the beginning of the month, those days came in the middle of the month. He says the last week of July and the beginning of August are historically the driest weeks of the year.

He adds the forecast calls for a dry and warm weekend, then back to clouds.

But he says there are signs the trough is weakening.