James Jones

August 1889 was pretty typical for the late 19th century, at least as far as the highs go. For a July/August to only average a 77 degree high these days, it pretty much has to be a lot cloudier than average, and in fact the last time we saw an August with an average high that cool was in 1989. Our summer climate has warmed a lot.

PDX: 6/4: 100/61 6/5: 100/64 6/6: 92/62 6/7: 87/60 6/8: 76/56 SEA: 6/4: 92/58 6/5: 95/61 6/6: 85/61 6/7: 80/58 6/8: 72/55

I like how all of the discussion has been about the potential for a weak ridge vs. a weak trough 10+ days from now despite the fact that we have a potentially historic weather event coming up this weekend. Nothing gets me excited like the possibility of an 80 degree day or a day with light rain and highs in the 60s in early-mid June.

How's the heat and humidity feeling to you?

PDX: June: + 2.0 July: + 1.4 August: + 1.0 September: 0.0 October: + 7.0 (kidding!!!!) SEA: June: + 2.2 July: + 1.6 August: + 1.1 September: 0.0 EUG: June: + 1.8 July: + 1.4 August: + 1.2 September: + 0.5 OLM: June: + 1.8 July: + 1.1 August: + 0.5 September: - 1.0 DCA: June: + 1.0 July: + 1.8 August: + 2.5 September: + 2.0

I say go for it. It would be fun.

Somebody should make a summer forecast thread for the monthly anomalies for June-September at BLI, SEA, OLM, PDX, SLE, and EUG (or whatever choice of stations you'd rather use). It would be interesting to have some hard numbers to look at come October, though by then people might not care at all since we'll be heading into a Nina winter.

I feel like you're tempting fate here. As far as I'm concerned, these type of posts you made last year were responsible for how Summer 2015 turned out

It happens. This is a forum full of weather weenies who like to discuss the weather, and it looked like another record warm month could have been on tap, so we talked about it. People goof once in a while. I seem to remember you calling for an average summer last year, for example.

Crazy for anybody to think that a record warm month might have been possible considering how cold the last 2-3 years have been. We should have known better. But yes, this is a nice crash with some much needed rain.

Yeah but have you heard about the H I S T O R I C chilliness in the Northeast???

We'd be off to a pretty ridiculous first 15 days if the Euro verifies. Hopefully Tim is right about a cool/wet stretch sometime before July. Could be the May version of June 2015, where it just smashes the previous record warm month. I wonder if it's physically possible for a Willamette Valley location to see an 80 degree monthly average high in May?

Hopefully it happens. If the dry season is already starting like it did this time last year, we could have another awful fire season around here.

It's not necessary to be a complete **** either, Chris. I admire his fascination with thunderstorms, even if I don't quite understand it.

500mb heights are above normal over us for every frame of the 00z GFS, and this run isn't an outlier. Looking like this month could contend for a record warm May in a lot of places. Feels silly to say that on the 3rd of the month, but record warmth has been so easy to come by recently that I can't help but think it's a good possibility.

Hopefully this fuels a debate between Tim and Phil about ENSO, volcanic contamination, and summer analogs. That would be a really fresh, new, and interesting discussion.

I think pretty much everybody on this board would be fine with a 1992 type summer (at least until the somewhat cooler and cloudier than normal September). It had a good mix of everything.

This spring has been pretty 1992ish so far, and May looks like it's going to be similar too. I'd take the winter that followed.

I don't know where you're getting your numbers, but May and June were both well above average on the westside. June 1889's average high of 79.4 is still the 2nd highest on record for downtown Portland, surpassed only by June 2015 (Portland's UHI wasn't well established at this point, so the monthly mean isn't going to accurately represent how warm of a month it really was).

The warming climate point is a good one, I think you guys have been overlooking how much cooler our Summer climate used to be when you talk about these older analogs. For example, here's Downtown Portland's average summer highs from 1875 to 1904 (first 30 years of the station existing), with PDX's 1981-2010 averages in parentheses: June: 71.6 (73.5) July: 77.6 (80.6) August: 77.4 (81.1) September: 71.1 (75.8) So while August and September 1889 in Portland look very cool by modern standards, it wasn't cool at all for the standards of the late 19th century. August 1889 had an average high just a tick below average and September was +2.3 on the average highs of the late 19th Century.

PDX only topped out at 87, SEA at 89. Goddamn that third runway!! OLM has broken their monthly record high, they're at 88.

OLM right now is about a degree ahead of its warmest April on record, so the last week of the month would really have to come through in the clutch to avoid it. Front Ranger must be real nervous.

Yahweh.

00z Euro says there's going to be a lot of busts on 4/19 and that the contest should've gone a day longer.