Hurricanes and Tornadoes That Hit Burien, WA

The nearest NOAA station with 1991–2020 climate normals is Seattle Tacoma International Airport, WA, 2 miles southeast of Burien at 370 feet. August is the warmest, with an average high of 78°F and low of 57°F; December is the coolest, at 47°F and 37°F. November is the wettest at 6.3 inches of precipitation on average and July the driest at 0.6 inches; the year adds up to 39.5 inches over 93 days with at least a tenth of an inch. Highs reach 90°F on about 4 days a year, almost all from July to August. Lows fall below freezing on about 25 nights a year. Snowfall averages 6.3 inches a year, most of it in February. That 39.5 inches is more than at 47 of the 86 Washington stations used on this site (55%). Kent, 8 miles southeast, has its own station (Kent, WA): 40.3 inches a year, 0.8 more than here, and the same August average high, 78°F.

Water temperature at the NOAA tide station Tacoma, WA, 13 miles south, averaged 56°F in September and 48°F in March over 2021–2025. No month averaged 80°F. Sea level at the Seattle tide gauge, 10 miles from Burien, has risen 0.82 ± 0.03 inches per decade from 1899 to 2025, NOAA's linear trend; at that pace it is 8.2 inches in a hundred years. That is faster than at 42 of the 144 U.S. gauges with a NOAA trend.

Since 1996, the National Weather Service has logged 5 flood, rain, thunderstorm wind and lightning events that began within 10 miles of Burien: 2 heavy rain events, 2 lightning strikes and 1 thunderstorm wind report. They killed 1 person and injured 1, and the NWS estimated $39,000 in property and crop damage. The strongest thunderstorm gust on record here was 60 mph, on December 14, 2010.

Flood insurance policyholders in Burien's 2 ZIP codes have filed 67 claims with the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, and were paid $687,000 for buildings and contents, in the dollars of each year. The most came from Flooding in 1990: 16 claims (24% of all) and $140,000. 31% of the claims carry the name of a storm or flood event; the rest have no event name. Of the 128 Washington cities on this site with 10 or more claims, 82 have fewer than Burien.