When is someone going to turn on the rain around Washington?

October has been warmer and drier than typical Northwest fall weather. Now, it might finally be time to cover up the BBQ, get out your boots, and install fresh wipers — rain is showing up on the forecast.

Starting Oct. 19, the National Weather Service says Washington will be warm and rainy.

Phil Swartzendruber, a forecaster with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, says that between the dry summer and smoky air, the region really needs the rain.

"We're hoping for someone to flip the switch and turn the fall weather on. I'm not sure who's got the clicker," Swartzendruber said.

Swartzendruber says that the Northwest is dealing with an unusually warm and dry start to the fall. That has come with a rare wildfire on the west side of the Cascades, sending smoke throughout the region.

"Probably not going to get rain or a major system until the beginning of next week," Swartzendruber said. "By the end of next week we should actually have a fairly big system, and probably going to be the most likely time that we're gonna get a big event to really clean (the air) out."

Swartzendruber's forecast lines up with the latest from the National Weather Service in Seattle. It's noting that, "Mean temperature for Seattle through the first 10 days of the month is 63.2. That's the warmest start on record," adding that four of the top six warmest "October starts" have happened within the past 10 years.

The Weather Service's latest forecast states that between Oct. 19-25, the switch that Swartzendruber has been watching for is finally going to be flipped, and above-average rain will come to the Northwest. It will still be warmer than usual, but it will be rainy.

To put in perspective how dry the Northwest has been over the past few months, Las Vegas got more rain than Seattle this summer.

Analysts are pointing to the Northwest's unusually dry and warm start to fall (along with the driest summer on record for the Seattle area) as the reason behind drought conditions that have emerged in parts of Washington state.

The latest maps from the U.S. drought monitor show a large portion of the Puget Sound region and Western Washington are now experiencing a moderate drought, with the rest of the state being abnormally dry.

Toward the end of September, only a couple of areas east of the mountains were dealing with such moderate drought types of conditions.