Clouds Then Major Heat Builds

A weak trough moving in this evening (Tuesday) is bringing some breezy conditions with it. I recently recorded a gust of 18 mph. It’s almost always likely that breeze will accompany clouds moving in during summer. 

Clouds will move in this evening and will dissipate slowly on Wednesday morning. This increased cloud cover will limit Wednesday’s temperatures to the low-mid 70s. This will be a nice break before the heat that is coming. Potentially making a run at late July’s yearly high. 

Let’s take a look at the weather.com forecast for Puyallup. Temperatures build starting Thursday and peak on Sunday & Monday.

Wow. That’s serious heat here in Western WA. 96 and 91 degrees on Sunday and Monday, and 80s through next Wednesday. It looks like Saturday through Monday will be the hottest days. I’d venture to say that Sunday is Heat Advisory criteria. We’ll see if our local NWS decides to go that route. 

Let’s look at some forecast models. This is the highly accurate Euro (European Union) Model. This shows Sunday’s forecast temperatures at 4 PM (heat of the day).

This forecast shows potentially historic heat. 97 DEGREES in Puyallup and Tacoma along with 95+ from Federal Way southward. That’s crazy. Makes you sweat thinking about it. If you look closely, this map also shows the subtle differences between valleys and hills (95 in South Hill vs 97 in Puyallup). 

Of course, forecasts will likely fluctuate slightly, but regardless, Sunday will be very hot for the Central and Southern Puget Sound areas. If you want relief...it won’t arrive until midweek next week. Or, you could go to the Washington coast. 65-75 and sunny there when it’s 85-95+ here. Sounds good to me. 

One more thing...take a look at this graphic. It shows the departure from normal for sea surface temperatures. See the circled area of blue? 

Blue (below normal sea surface temps) means a La Niña winter is likely. This means cooler and wetter for Western Washington. And yes, that includes a greater chance of snow. Stay tuned!