Eugene-5SW

I'm calling B.S. on the tree photo. In order to cast a shadow like that at noon, the tree would have to be shaped like a flat-topped cylinder, with a thin fringe of leaves along the outside edge and nothing on top. It looks like a stylized representation of a tree like you'd get in a computer architect program.

CA/SW was even cooler relative to normal than SEA or OLM. Poor EUG has nowhere to go...

EUG ended June with an average high of 80.5. Confirmed as 4th warmest on record behind 1951, 2015, and 2021.

TWL on vacation so I guess I have to fill in for him. 92º at EUG today, #5 for the year. Quite a few 89s as well. Plenty more 90s in the pipeline, with maybe even a 100º or two early next week.

Eugene is running only about 5º cooler than Sacramento this June. Old-school normal difference is more like 12º.

That's kind of what I was trying to say. "Deniers" sometimes cherry-pick rural stations that haven't experienced much warming to support a contention that "it's all just UHI," and "doomers" sometimes cherry-pick urban stations where UHI is definitely a factor to support extreme projections that all the world's ice is going to melt in 5 years or whatever. As is often the case, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

No "rant" there -- that's the kind of useful objective analysis I appreciate. I may have been overly sensitive to Phil's post because I see too often how UHI is used as a scapegoat by climate change deniers to explain away any effects of GHG emissions, as if it has to be one or the other. I suppose whether you assign more weight to UHI or GHG matters in the context of mitigation efforts. Focusing on fossil fuel reduction won't help if the main problem is UHI. Conversely, you won't move the needle much overall with green roofs and trees if GHGs are a major contributor.

Fair enough. And it's true that a lot of alarmists point to data from urban stations likely significantly corrupted by UHI, and fail to acknowledge it.

I don't think anyone doubts that UHI is a significant factor in the warming observed at urban sites, but the fact the you have not recorded any warming in your East Coast back yard does not, alas, invalidate the warming observed at numerous official western PNW lowland stations, many of them indisputably rural.

#Fresnification From I-5 near Cottage Grove:

Weather god curses aside, it really is a mystery. The pattern of the last few days would suggest highs in the upper 70s, which is what the NWS forecast. No idea why it keeps overachieving by such a large margin. Not a sensor issue at EUG because other local stations (including my PWS) concur.

Oh you and your acronyms. The real explanation is a lot simpler. 2013 is the year I started spending my summers up here, and the weather gods know how much I hate hot weather.

Could come in #4 for June average high since 1939, if the next 3 days don't magically under-achieve.

Yes they were. Only 1951 comes close.

Eugene's been killin' it lately with over-achieving on high temperatures. Every day for the last week has been 5º-7º warmer than the NWS forecast. Today's high of 85º was a +7º. June 2023 average high to date of 79.3 is +5.2 above normal, but isn't in the ballpark of 2015 (83.6) or 2021 (82.4).

I'd rather have a quick-hitter 100º day with a cool-down to (old-school) normals afterward than an endless string of 90º days like we've had every recent summer, and toward which the models seem to be gravitating yet again. Those pooh-poohing the ecosystem destruction angle might remember that down here at least, we're going in with the accumulated stress of over a decade of consistently hot and dry summers, an overall dry winter, and the driest May+June on record.

Texas is a big state. The heatwave is more in the southwest part, not the Dallas area. Cotulla had a week straight of double-digit departures with 2 weeks of highs around 110º. I'd say that's a legit heatwave.

EUG still vacillating between 88 and 90 on the 5-minute obs. May end up as another 89.

Undoubtedly true, but I didn't mean "arctic blasts" in a technical sense. I just meant that it seems like warm periods modeled, say, 7+ days out seem to verify more often than cool periods do. I admit a lot of it is probably perceptual.

True, although it sure feels like heatwaves have verified a lot more often than arctic blasts over the last dozen years or so.

We need a "whew!" emoji.

Not a very long period of record at Port Angeles Fairchild Airport, but 2011, 2012, and 2013 were all drier for the water year to date than 2023. Driest water year to date on record for BLI, though.

#1 driest May+June on record for EUG, as noted yesterday. At least the models are showing a very warm (EPS) to ridiculously hot (GFS 06z op) period beginning around 7/1 and lasting into eternity. That'll help.

With any more rain for the rest of the month looking unlikely, this May-June will probably go down as the driest on record at Eugene with 0.48" total for the 2 months.

You're in a sweet spot there in Springfield. Just 0.10" here with abundant sunshine all afternoon.