It's Seattle after all. Maurene McQuarrie had planned to take her two grandkids to the wading pool even if it wasn't balmy.

"I assume since it's summer, it will be open," McQuarrie said. "It's one of the free activities you can do with your children."

So McQuarrie has been disappointed at how often the E.C. Hughes wading pool, near her West Seattle home, has been closed because of chilly or rainy weather.

"It makes me crazy," McQuarrie said, watching the kids splash in the pool Wednesday. "It doesn't have to be sunshiny to be open. We're Seattle folks. We can take summer a little cooler."

Seattle's policy is that wading pools will open only on days when the temperature is expected to be at least 70 degrees — which this summer has meant many pools have been closed one-fourth to one-third of the time.

June temperatures were 1.3 degrees below normal, and July temperatures were 1.1 degrees below normal, according to meteorologist Johnny Burg with the National Weather Service. Between June 1 and Aug. 16, Seattle recorded the 14th-coldest summer on record, when looking at high temperatures, Burg said.

But there is a bright spot for wading-pool users: The money saved by not opening on chillier-than-normal days means extended hours for some pools during what remains of this summer.

To save money, the parks department this year already had planned longer seasons at the most popular wading pools and shorter seasons for the others. The lower-usage pools had been scheduled to close Aug. 21; now some will remain open through Aug. 28.

An average wading pool costs about $550 a day to operate, said Dewey Potter, spokeswoman for the parks department. Two-thirds of that goes to filling and draining the pool and one-third to staff and supplies.

Potter said the city anticipates the wading pools will be closed 10 percent of the time because of weather conditions, which in the past has been a good estimate.

Kristin Wiggins, a Ballard resident visiting the wading pool at Wallingford Playground with her 4-year-old son and 6-week-old daughter, said when the wading pools were closed she had to find more indoor activities.

"Families look for low- or no-cost activities, and this takes that off the table," Wiggins said. Their family has memberships at Woodland Park Zoo and Pacific Science Center, but she said those alternatives are too costly for many families.

The 70-degree threshold still applies to the additional wading-pool days, but Cliff Mass, University of Washington atmospheric-sciences professor and local weather expert, said that shouldn't be a problem. He said conditions the rest of the month look to be summertime normal, meaning sunny and warm.

As for this winter? Stay tuned.

Mass said the latest models are showing that Seattle could have a La Niña winter: colder and snowier than usual.

"Now the models are split: neutral or La Niña," Mass said. "If I was the mayor, I'd be hoping for the neutral one."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com