Cooler Weather Finally Arrives

Well, our heat wave has finally ended.  Deer Park tied its consecutive string of 90+ degree days at 18.  But Spokane may keeping it going, now at 18 days and possibly 19 today and 20 by tomorrow.  Truly impressive.  But even more impressive is Omak, which had 16 consecutive days of triple digits, smashing their old record of 9 days set only 2 years ago.  

Sunday was historic hot.  Fourth hottest day in Spokane history.  And no, this wasn't a local effect of the airport.  Every location in the metro area was hot.


The dew point is dropping like a rock on this Tuesday afternoon.  That means a chilly night tonight.  Temperatures on Wednesday morning will be in the upper 40s, with mid 40s at the cold spots like Springdale and Priest Lake.  The low dew point will continue through the rest of this week, making dew tough to find, even with the cooler temperatures.

Our heat-breaking low is actually coming in two phases.  The first phase arrived Monday evening.  You can see on the weather map below how the main low is off the BC coast, but part of it is stretched out to near the Inland NW.


We'll have a one-day warm up on Wednesday before part two of this low swings into us on Thursday.  The computers have gone back and forth on this.  A week ago they were forecasting this low to come over us, but then backed off on that idea.  Now they've settled on something in between, with the low tracking across southern BC.


 The result will be a rather cool day on Thursday and even Friday.  This is a breezy pattern for us, especially on Thursday.  We might even see a few showers across northeast Washington, but any rainfall amounts will be very light.

The final week of July is usually about the hottest week of the summer.  But after our hot stretch, we deserve a break.  And mother nature will keep things on the cooler side.  A cool trough of low pressure will hang down from western Canada into the Pac NW.  We might even see some showers from this pattern on the 30th or 31st.  


The hot weather will return.  You can see in the weather map above that the four-corners high has been pushed eastward, over Texas.  But it will return back to the Southwest for the start of August.  Too early to say what this warm spell will like.  But if you remember the Climate Prediction Center outlook for August showing the hot weather will be mainly over the Rockies.  If correct, that would mean our hot spells in August should be shorter and/or less intense than what we just went through.







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