The streak of cool weather is the longest in more than two years (hat tip: @iamaweathergeek on Twitter), dating to March 2018.

The situation is the polar opposite of last year, when Washington reached at least 70 degrees on 18 of 21 days in the last three weeks of April, which ranked as the second-warmest on record.

Our weather over the past two weeks has most closely matched typical late-April conditions in Portland, Ore., according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center.

It has not only been cooler than normal but also much wetter than normal. More than five inches of rain has fallen this month, including 4.34 inches in the past two weeks. Washington has logged measurable rainfall on five straight days and in 14 of the past 21 days.

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Since March 1, we’ve had 30 days with measurable rainfall, tied for the most on record. On the plus side, the rainy weather has contributed to the best air quality over the region in decades and below-average pollen levels.

There’s no immediate sign of a pattern change. Most days this week are likely to be cooler than normal, and we have several opportunities for rain showers, including a heavy burst of rain Wednesday night. That said, we will have chances to break the streak of cooler-than-normal weather Wednesday and Sunday, when it could eclipse 70.

But some models are hinting at unseasonably cool weather during the first half of next week. Supporting that, the National Weather Service’s eight- to 14-day outlook leans heavily toward cooler-than-average and wetter-than-average conditions May 4 through 10.

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“The latest models continue to show this pattern persisting into at least the middle part of May,” Capital Weather Gang contributor Matt Rogers, who specializes in long-range forecasting, wrote in an email. Models “suggest that we could see a more sustainable warmer period possible by either the last week of May or the first week of June.”

Any semblance of a cool weather pattern was notably absent between January and March, much to the dismay of snow lovers. That period ranked as the second-warmest on record, and snowfall was practically nonexistent.

The mild winter was attributed to an unusually strong and stable polar vortex, which kept cold air bottled up in the Arctic. Now that the vortex is breaking apart, lobes of cooler air are sneaking south.

Rogers also attributed the recent chill to hangover effects from last year’s El Niño, which is sometimes associated with cool spring weather in the East.

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Even as cool as it has been in April, the month will probably end up only about 1.5 degrees cooler than average, because of a mild start.

If you don’t like this cooler-than-average weather, you can take solace in the fact that average temperatures are on the rise, so what is considered cooler than average will become progressively warmer. The average high at the end of this week is 72 and rises to the mid-70s in two weeks.