The End of Summer?

Labor Day is often viewed as the unofficial end of summer. Meteorologically, September can still be rather warm, despite the shortening days. It looks like the Northwest will see cooler weather that will last into early September, along with some chances of rain. 

After a couple of days in the 90s, a pattern change will take place in the atmosphere. Cooler low pressure will set up in the West with hot high pressure being pushed into the Midwest.  




Temperatures here will drop into the 70s. Sunday and Monday mornings low temperature could be in the upper 30s.  Time to keep an eye out for frost. 

How long will this last?  At least into the middle of next week. After that, the computers diverge a bit. Some say warm weather will reappear for Labor Day weekend. Others say that the cooler weather will persist through the holiday weekend. 

Part of the disagreement could be caused by tropical cyclone Lala.  After it hit Hawaii it re-strengthened in the north central Pacific, northwest of Hawaii. Tropical cyclones that make it into the jet stream have historically caused problems for the computer forecasts. 




It’s worth pointing out that on average we see two days in September with high temperatures in the 90s.  Last year we had 5 such days. But this has been a cooler summer in 2026 so an early fall make some sense. We’ll see. 

With this cooler weather pattern comes the chance of some rain. No details yet. But the consensus is focusing around 3 September. 


While most of us got a little rain last week, the official rain gauge at Spokane airport did not. And so the dry streak is now up to 58 days. Still well shy of the record 80 straight dry days in the summer of 2017.




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