weatherblog

After tranquil Memorial Day, heat returns late next week

We’ve enjoyed some pretty typical May weather of late, with a few showers, some sunbreaks and the absence of extreme heat. We should see lowland high temperatures in the 60s in most spots this time on the calendar and that will continue for a few more days.

In fact, while we’ll have some more sunshine to start the holiday weekend, we’ll still have high temperatures mainly in the 60s. There’s a little better chance for rain Sunday and Monday for Memorial Day itself. I’ll have more on the timing of that wet weather on KIRO 7 News.

However, I’m also looking beyond Memorial Day and there’s a good chance of a more significant warmup by later next week, just in time to finish the month of May.

A return to 80s?

A ridge of high pressure aloft will build across the west coast late next week, reminiscent of what we saw earlier this month when we had highs well into the 80s. High pressure aloft imparts a downward force in the atmosphere, which usually keeps clouds away.

In addition, there looks to be a change in wind flow to offshore flow across Western Washington from around Thursday, May 28 into the following weekend. This would also promote warming, shutting off the cool onshore flow that is typical for our region, that is, flow coming onshore from the cool Pacific waters.

Highs in the upper 70s and 80s look probable from about the 28th of May into the following weekend, possibly subsiding around the first few weeks of June.

Warmth like that would also bring a lot of folks to our local lakes and rivers, which are running cool with water temperatures in the 40s to low 60s, with the upper reaches of our river systems nearer the mountains the coldest because of snowmelt. Be careful and wear a life jacket! That goes for any time of year.