The prickly pear cactus, the driest place in western Washington and the blue hole — these are the examples of Sequim’s climate to be featured in an hourlong documentary to air on Thursday.

Directed by Ben Saboonchian, the documentary will feature Forks’ and Sequim’s climates, along with a few others in the area.

“We talk about how the rainiest town in the lower 48 can be a little over an hour away from the driest place in western Washington,” Saboonchian said. “Which is nothing new if you’ve lived there, but we did have a new meteorologist working with us so you may still learn something new, or be able to compare Sequim’s climate to others in the area.”

The future of news documentaries such as Saboonchian’s “Secrets of Our Weather,” is unknown, but Saboonchian says there have been dramatic decreases over the past 20 years.

“When I went to television news in 1980, the CBS affiliate I was working for did 18 hours of community broadcasting,” he said. “Now, with deregulation and a shift in the market, we saw a decrease to three hours within four years, a trend that has continued across the county.”

Saboonchian said he enjoys documentaries because they explore a topic rather than give a three-minute peek into its existence during a regular news show.

“Generally speaking, they are not profitable,” he said. “But they are something that people identify with KIRO since we still do them and they enjoy them.”

Saboonchian has several documentaries through KIRO. His broadcast on global climate change, which won several awards, can be found at www.kirotv.com/station/13944206/detail.html.



“Secrets of Our Weather,” a documentary on western Washington climate, will feature segments on Sequim and Forks at 10 p.m. March 27 on KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.