James Jones

Eugene only hit 93 the day Salem hit 117, Portland 116, and Seattle 108 because the southerly surge was already in progress. The last couple days were very close to being as anomalous as June 2021, and as others have mentioned the setup was very similar with the highest heights of the rex block being just to our north/northeast. It reminds me a bit of March 2012 for the Midwest in terms of how unprecedented this month as been for the region, though our climate isn't capable of the level of anomalies the Midwest and East can see during the cold season. The average high at PDX so far this month is an absurd 81.3, warmer than the average high for August with the old 1981-2010 normals. No other October in the last ~150 years has come even close.

88 at Aurora at 12:53 on 10/15 is off the charts absurd.

Latest 87 degree high on record for PDX, breaking the daily record high by 5 degrees. That was without any surfacing east wind either. At least the models are hinting that we'll finally enter a more typical rainy pattern in the last week to 10 days of the month.

Yeah, looks nasty on the ground from pictures I've seen. We've been very lucky in the Portland area to have only had a few days with particularly bad smoke.

The Euro shows us briefly getting clipped by that system before igniting another round of warm offshore flow. Sounds about right. Fire danger could be pretty high with that, something that feels bizarre to talk about since it will be nearly mid October by then.

Crazy stat: PDX has seen 100 consecutive days with a high of 70 or greater, beating the record of 96 set last year, which beat the record of 92 set in 2017. Seven of the top eight 70+ streaks have been set since 2012. Decent chance of a sub 70 high today or tomorrow, but if not the streak could get truly absurd (if it isn't already).

Gonna be really disappointing if we go through this troughy pattern without meaningful regionwide rain. Another smokefest is probably on the way late month late month if the next week ends up dry.

That's one absurdly thick smoke plume. The sky is milky white up here but we're lucky compared to most of the region.

Predicting a hot summer these days is about as difficult as predicting a predominately cloudy December. Best to expect it to be hot until the atmosphere proves otherwise.

Looks like this summer has already tied the PDX record for days of 98+ at 7, which will probably be broken tomorrow. We also are at 11 days of 95+, the record being 14 in 2015. The first front of fall is going to be soooo nice. I'm hoping September ends up okay like we've seen in a lot of recent years, but right now my feeling is that this could be one of those years where summer drags on into October.

Those buildings and asphalt look awfully close to the sensor. Encroaching UHI...

Holy , that's insane. I would imagine it's gotta be up there for biggest hail ever in the PNW lowands. A humid 76 with light rain here. Very tropical feeling.

And 11 in the last three years, which is the most Portland has ever seen in a 3 year stretch with the old record being 9. 100 degree days per decade at PDX: 40s: 12 50s: 2 60s: 7 70s: 15 80s: 15 90s: 12 00s: 15 10s: 11 20s: 11 so far The number of 90 degree days has been trending up significantly but up until now the number of extreme 100+ days has been pretty constant for the last 50 years, though that may be changing. I don't know what the guy's deal is but he's basically a straight up climate change denier at this point. Several years back I remember him making a blog post about how our fire seasons haven't been changing in length, and his "evidence" was to show March-April-May temperature and precip trends hadn't changed much over the last century. That was when I stopped reading his blog entirely.

Looks like there's a new fire near Silverton.

This is how I've been thinking of it. PDX's average highs since 2013 demonstrate this well, the late July through late August period shows a distinct spike (as well as late June, but that may be more happenstance).