Western WA enjoys brief respite from heat before warmup on solstice | KING 5 Extended Weather

[00:00:00]Hey there friends, happy Saturday. I'm King 5 meteorologist Ashley Rue taking a deeper dive into the forecast on this final day of spring, but it's felt like summer for quite some time, especially earlier in the week when we had record high temperatures here in Seattle, 91.

[00:00:18]And that was for Match 1 here in Seattle for the World Cup. Going to be pretty similar as we head into the early half of next week. I'll show you in a minute, but even yesterday, 82°. Today's going to be cooler before we start to heat things right back up. And yes, the summer solstice officially occurs, so it occurs at 1:24 a.m. Pacific time, and we get nearly 16 hours of daylight tomorrow, June 21st and Father's Day.

[00:00:49]Cooler today because we have our natural AC returning to the area. That's why we've had cloudy skies for much of the region. Tomorrow, we're going to warm things up once again. Ridging is going to build, and that's going to help really heat things up as we head into the first half of next week. For now, Tuesday looks like the hottest day, and it's not just the heat, but similar to earlier in the week when we had that increased fire danger, that's going to be something we have to watch out for because we're going to get offshore winds. Showers may return late next week. It does appear as though we'll get a big flip in our weather pattern. It's not guarantee, but it's looking likely, increasingly likely. Fire concern still east of the Cascades. Again, our risk for fires or enhanced risk for fire weather will be early next week. Eastern Washington, so central and eastern Washington, portions of the area, red flag warnings kick right back in in the afternoon through the evening hours as we get some pretty strong onshore winds.

[00:01:57]they're going to move into eastern Washington. So, any fires that start could spread rapidly. Over the next 7 days, eastern Washington, little to no rain, but here west of the Cascades, we could get some light showers again later in the week, and we'll fine-tune the forecast as we get a little closer. It doesn't appear as though it's going to be substantial. Most spots, maybe less than a tenth of an inch or a tenth of an inch to quarter inch, but that's really just about it because, again, we're not going to have any substantial rain, but anything at this point will help. Let's talk big picture because I mentioned we're going to have that ridge building once again. The reason why we have clouds in the area and the return of onshore winds, so that cooler air coming off of the Pacific, it's because we have a weakness in the ridge that's been driving our weather pattern. We have a disturbance over Canada that's going to move out of here, and that's going to eventually lead to our winds being offshore as this ridge begins to build again, drying us out, heating us up because uh we'll also have a thermal trough, similar to last week where we get that push of offshore winds right over Washington. So, a very stout ridge holds tight at least until the middle half of the week, but then by Thursday and Friday, model guidance shows that potential for that flip in weather pattern. So, instead of ridging, we'd have we'd have troughing. So, that's something we're going to be watching out for and especially because we need something in the form of precipitation at this point just to help and to help cool us off because keep in mind, I mean, we've had numerous stretches where we would warm up, we'd cool down, but this is more of prolonged heat. We're not talking 1 day in the 80s or 1 day in the 90s, we're going to have several days with that. So, and keep in mind again, summer officially begins tomorrow. So, it hasn't officially been our hottest months. And so, going into the second half of June into the end of June, it does appear so we'll have that weather pattern flip. But until then, wanted to give you a heads-up that the weather team issued a first alert for Tuesday because that's the day that looks to be the hottest. Uh possibly record high temperatures, that fire danger. It's still a little early to know just how cool. I know it's still hot, but a slight cooling trend by Wednesday. We have to see how quickly we get that return of onshore winds. But by Thursday and Friday with that weather pattern flip, that's when we'll really start to cool things down. Here's a look outside.

[00:04:43]Again, a lot of us still sitting under low clouds, but above all of those low clouds, we have some sun- shine. So, we will have at least partly cloudy skies by the afternoon. Temperature-wise in the low and mid-70s. It also depends on how quickly these clouds break up and then scatter out. But the coast will be cooler. So, at least until midday, early afternoon, some of you will be trapped under the clouds. Lot going on. I know we had the big World Cup match yesterday. Uh still a lot of events going on. We have the Mariners at home against the Red Sox again this evening.

[00:05:22]7:10 is first pitch, but we also have lots going on, the watch parties, but the Arts Festival in Edmonds, we have the air show in Olympia, the Rhubarb Days in Sumner, and Strawberry Fest in Marysville, but we also have one in Burien as well, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

[00:05:40]Then we have several Juneteenth events, the uh Solstice parade in Fremont, that's at 1:00 p.m., but then the festival continues through the weekend.

[00:05:49]Tomorrow morning in the 40s and 50s, so I would open up the windows, get that naturally, see if you don't have AC to cool your house down before we start to heat things right back up. Now, tomorrow we may wake up to some more clouds and then we'll have mostly sunny skies into the afternoon as the onshore winds start to get cut off a little bit, so that natural AC starts to diminish for us here in the interior areas, not so much for the coast, but you see how we start to warm things up. 70s up north, upper 70s to about 80 here in Puget Sound. But once again, looking ahead to the early half of the week, again first alert weather day on Tuesday, we'll have to see if maybe we'll issue it Monday or into Wednesday as well, but for now Tuesday because that's going to be the hottest day. And looking ahead to our next FIFA World Cup matches here in Seattle next Wednesday and next Friday.

[00:06:48]So, looking and this could change obviously given the fact that we're still five to four to six days out, so a lot of things could change in the forecast, but Wednesday's match looks to be the warmer one as you can see and maybe even a few showers for our late match, Egypt versus Iran next Friday at 8 p.m. maybe 60s and a couple of showers. Not a guarantee though, but definitely going to have more sunshine for Wednesday's match versus on Friday, next Friday. But until then, we'll have morning clouds today, afternoon sunshine, temperatures in the 70s, and then Father's Day Monday as well, we'll start to heat things up and you see how our mornings start to get a little warmer before they start to cool things down. Now, beyond the seven-day forecast, this always changes because again, if past seven days or even past really 5 days, really there are still some uncertainties and when it comes to forecasting weather, as I'm sure you are well aware of. But, to wrap up the month and heading into early July, looks as though we're going to have that weather pattern flip with temperatures near normal, if maybe a couple of degrees below normal or you see either side of normal, cuz this time of year about 72-73 degrees is our average high. So, remember you can always find the latest forecast as well as a deep dive into the forecast like this one on our YouTube page KING 5 Plus and you can always find the latest forecast with the weather team, the First Alert Weather Team on air, online and once again, KING 5 Plus.