Today was just about perfect in my very humble opinion: perfectly clear sky after brief morning clouds, afternoon high around 80°, and very low humidity.
I don’t write many weather blog posts in summertime since the weather is really quite boring, plus it’s vacation time. I’ll be off next week so I figure I should at least update this section of our web page and app before I head out, so a short post this evening.
3 BIG MESSAGES
- A thicker marine layer means temperatures will be slightly below normal for this last weekend of July. Highs 75-80° will be very comfortable!
- Increasing southerly flow overhead much of next week means thunderstorms are on tap most afternoons starting Sunday east of the Cascades. Some days they will form over the Cascades too. The chance for thunder at this moment is low west of the Cascades but that could change.
- There’s no sign of a heat wave through the first few days of August. We’ll just touch 90° or so next Tuesday/Wednesday, then cool off.
So our 7-Day Forecast is pretty tame for what can be the hottest time of year
This is typically the peak of summer in our area temperature-wise. Portland averages a high temperature of 84 this week and the first week of August.
We’ve avoided extreme heat or heat waves this year so far. Lots of days around or above 90, but no 100 degree days nor long episodes of hot weather. Yes, I realize that Salem has had two 3-day “heatwaves”, but I’m talking Portland here.
Check out July so far, quite a range of temps
You should check out our podcast from Thursday evening, lots of good information there. I mentioned that this summer seems just “a little warm” to many of us. Yet, if you could plop Summer 2025 down in the middle of the 1970s, 80s, or 90s, it would be one of the warmest! That shows how much our summers have warmed the last 12 years or so.
We’ve picked up about 1/3″ of rain, but most areas haven’t seen ANY rain this month.
Notice zero rain at Salem, Eugene, and just one hundredth at Astoria
We haven’t been too hot since there’s been no persistent upper-level ridging over the region as we’ve seen in some other really hot summers. Here’s the forecast from the Euro model ensemble forecast system for the next 5 days. These are the usual 500mb heights. Warm colors are higher than normal, cool = lower than normal heights. About normal for us, the big hot ridge is centered over the central part of the USA.
Heights are still about average for days 6-11, that takes us into the first few days of August. A persistent cool upper-level low way offshore. Generally too far away to give us showers, but any closer and that could happen. This takes us through the first weekend of August.
There are hints that ridging strengthens a bit near the end of the first week of August, but that’s WAY out there. See the widespread above normal heights from days 10-15. Also notice that hot eastern USA ridge has shifted back into the Rockies.
What about rain? Hmmm, nothing until at least Thursday the 30th. That would be IF a thunderstorm slips west of the Cascades. I see quite a few ensemble members produce showers at some point in the 8-15 day period, so maybe we somehow get another brief soaking in spots somewhere in the first week of August? That’s rare, but does happen if an upper-level low is nearby. We’ll see…