My podcast today covers a lot of territory, but I will provide some of the highlights here.
First, a MASSIVE plume of wildfire smoke is spreading across eastern Washington right now (see image). The smoke is from the Cedar Creek fire of the western Oregon Cascades that exploded last night.
The smoke is dense enough that it will cause substantial cooling in eastern Washington today (smoke scatters/reflects solar radiation back to space).
Smoke is evident in eastern Washington.
Picture courtesy of AgWeatherNet
Second, the latest extended forecasts suggest that heatwaves are over this year for the Northwest. There is little chance that the western side of Washington will exceed 85F for the remainder of the year. Little chance eastern Washington will exceed 100F.
Check out the forecasts below! After mid-September, such warm temperatures become very unlikely for our region.
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Definitely seeing the signs, one is the light temperature that we often see beginning in August but becomes more apparent as we slide into Sept, but also the temps do not feel as strong as you indicate. I've always been very cognizant of this since a kid and another sign that is not weather related is how once SeaFair is over, the activities of late summer begin to shift to getting ready for the school season.
ReplyDeleteI came back from a walk with the dog almost 30 minutes ago and the temps are depending the source is either low 70's (whatever Windows 10 uses for weather) or 80 with the Weather Channel, with the thighs predicted to be 83. Doubt it. Anyway, the walk was warm, but not bad and I can feel the breeze, what we have currently does not feel as warm, but not cool as yet. Love this time of the year for many reasons, and not exclusively due to the weather.
I notice a reddish sky here in Bothell... The surface air is fairly good but clearly there is smoke at high altitude.
ReplyDeleteWithout the fire smoke, the Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research Center would have likely set a new record high today for September. The record is 100 going back to the late 1930s. While we did not have the mega heat wave of last June, the Research Center did set a record high for July this year, 109 versus previous record of 107. Also, the average temperature for this August (average of maximum and minimum) was the warmest of record, due largely to very warm night temperatures, running 8.8 degrees above the long term average. This summer continues the long term trend of warming night time minimum temperatures, a subject I would like Cliff to address sometime.
ReplyDeletecheck my new blog. Yes...this has been a warmer than normal summer...particularly in eastern WA. Nightime temps are warming much more quickly than max temps
DeleteThanks Cliff for the note that we seem clear of heat waves west of the Cascades for the rest of the year. That's the cue I've been looking for to pull the a/c out of our front room window for the season.
ReplyDeleteI flew into Seatac from the east coast yesterday and there was a huge fire near the ID/MT border. I assume that will be impacting the inland NW as well.
ReplyDeleteYup - we had sprinkles through much of today (Sunday). Spot on! Fall's here.
ReplyDeleteReports are saying it will be 90F in Western Washington this coming Saturday. 5 days from now. Where are they getting their information from? Last time Cliff said we are done with heat waves, we got another heat wave. Granted, I am sure that trying to predict weather, especially 5 days out, is a difficult task in this region.
ReplyDelete