Severe weather threatens the PNW

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Take a look outside with Portland's most accurate forecast, chief meteorologist Josh Cozart here. How we looking?

[00:00:04]>> A lot of activity firing up east of the Cascades. So, while western Oregon, southwest Washington enjoys the sunshine, we are seeing those thunderstorms quickly develop and race their way across the central and eastern locations of Oregon and Washington. This is going to be an ongoing scenario for the remainder of the night. As you can see, a lot of those lightning strikes firing up here across the Pacific Northwest and in particular across the state of Oregon as these yellow polygons are where the severe thunderstorms are currently developing. Now, we are steering clear of all of this activity, at least through the valley out towards the coast, holding on to the marine layer just a bit, but we'll zoom in and give you a closer picture of some of these stronger thunderstorms. They're tracking their way to the north and west at this point in time, eventually closing in on the Bend areas. They are on the fringe of that severe thunderstorm warning and also seeing these very scattered rain showers and thunderstorms track their way closer to Pendleton over about the next hour or so, producing large hail and a lot of and slicing through the Beaver State and that's going to be an ongoing concern through about the sunset hour. So, by about 8:00 tonight, that's when this very rare, in fact, severe thunderstorm watch is expected to expire. 60-mph winds, tornadoes, quarter-size hail, and of course, the frequent lightning is going to stay persistent as we are under a slight risk for severe thunderstorms.

[00:01:26]That's about a two out of five chance of seeing things just like that and actually seeing confirmation as we speak, but just garden variety showers expected for the I-5 corridor as these thunderstorms are really starting to to get torn up over the high terrain of the Cascades as the lightning strikes continue to keep our fire weather danger elevated, especially out towards the eastern sections of the state. And then, we see it crank back up yet again tomorrow as a few additional lightning strikes, but not as much rain is in the forecast, but at least this super soaker event with these thunderstorms helping to hopefully wash away some of the severe drought that we see persistently overhead for the central sections of Oregon. 81° with those dark storm clouds building out over the Cascades, but not impacting us here in the Rose City as the Pickles game for the rest of the night expecting to quickly cool things back into the 60s as the cloud coverage becomes a little more widespread. So, we'll time it all out with our futurecast expecting to see those thunderstorms quickly die out over the high terrain of the Cascades as we are left with just maybe a sprinkler to again very light in nature drying skies for the second half of the day tomorrow as we get to enjoy a bit more of that sunshine as we work our way towards the weekend. But, rain gauges good news for the central and eastern sections of Oregon seeing over 2 in in some locations as we pick up on just a few light rain showers for the I-5 corridor.

[00:02:43]Thunderstorm activity significantly lower for tomorrow's tonight here in the city expecting just a few light rain showers as we fall back into the mid-50s. Temperatures tomorrow down about 20° mid-60s for our afternoon highs. And for anyone heading out to the beach over the next several days, you can expect those temperatures to start to warm, those skies to dry out, and the sunshine to return all as the Pacific Northwest braces for the summer-like heat for the start of meteorological summer which gets underway on Monday.

[00:03:12]Tuesday highs approaching 90°.

[00:03:15]So, a lot of ups and downs for us and this thunderstorm threat I should anticipate to start to fade by about sunset tonight.

[00:03:21]>> All right, sounds good. And again, meteorological summer on the Mother Nature's like, "Yeah, you're going to feel it."

[00:03:26]>> Yeah. It will be a shock for you.

[00:03:28]>> All right, thanks Josh.