Heat Wave & Another Dry Lightning Outbreak Possible

[00:00:00]Good evening Western Washington. I'm Matthew Fab with Western Washington weather. I hope everybody had a nice Sunday and a nice weekend overall. It was some pretty nice weather across the area, generally quite pleasant except for parts of Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon where they're dealing with some air quality issues due to smoke. So, let's take a look at the satellite imagery here on this Sunday evening. You can see we have the marine layer continuing there on the Washington coast, clear across most of the region with some high clouds moving in from Oregon there. Um and then you can see some of this smoke. This is the Little Giant fire there to the west of Lake Chelan. This is the Brunswick complex up in British Columbia near Boston Bar. I'm not sure what this new fire is right here on the border between Washington and British Columbia. I'll have to take a look at that. Um and then you can see the Kaiser Canyon fire, over 60,000 acres now there to the north of Grand Coulee and then the Modoc fire there off to the uh south of Kettle Falls. That is also over 2,000 acres, I believe. And the Oregon fires are producing some smoke underneath these clouds as well.

[00:00:59]You can see a bit of smoke aloft here across Western Washington as some of the uh as the the sun starts to set and you can see that illuminated in the satellite imagery a little bit. Looking at the map here on Watch Duty, you can see two big complexes in Oregon, in total about 200,000 acres burning in this. Um and then you have some bigger fires in Eastern Washington. The Kaiser Canyon fire that we're talking about here to the north of Grand Coulee. Um the Modoc fire over there. And then it looks like this one that's producing the big plume there by the the border is the Comingan fire, uh which has burned 40 acres so far but has a lot of heat signature going on. And then there's the Little Giant fire here. You can see to the west of Lake Chelan, north of Lake Wenatchee.

[00:01:40]And also watching the Nason Ridge fire there near Stevens Pass. That one could be producing a good bit of smoke as well. Have to see how that plays out.

[00:01:48]So, taking a look also at fires in British Columbia, this these some of these will cause some smoke aloft across Western Washington. It's always good to kind of keep an eye on where the fires are burning in BC and kind of what um status they're in. You can see a lot of them in that red, which is out of control. Um now taking a look at the air quality, we'll let this uh load in here.

[00:02:07]Um and you can see we're mostly good across western Washington and western Oregon. You can see as we go into eastern Washington, you start to degrade a little bit. And then take a look at Spokane in the unhealthy category and then areas north of the Kaiser Canyon and Modoc fire there in the very unhealthy to hazardous categories for air quality. So that's kind of where that bad air is centered in northeast Washington there and then in parts in of eastern Oregon as well.

[00:02:30]Now taking a look at the smoke forecast, you can see this is for surface smoke.

[00:02:33]So you have all these little plumes from the fires across Oregon and Washington here. And you can see how as we go into tonight, those plumes calm down. But you see some of this surface smoke starts to move into western Washington. As we go off into tomorrow, those plumes ramp up again. You can see light concentrations of surface smoke across the Puget Sound area. This will likely be enough for you to smell some of that smoke, but I don't think it'll be enough to really cause any significant significant degradations of air quality. But you can see eastern Oregon in really rough shape there. Some of these plumes may be going even down toward Boise. And eastern Washington not doing very good as well. As we go off into Tuesday, you can see we remain in that kind of light concentration of surface smoke kind of blowing around here depending on where some of our winds are. And then you can see the Cascades eastward is much more concentration of surface smoke. So heads up for that. Looking at smoke aloft, you can see the plumes a bit better and where they're blowing. We get some smoke aloft across western Washington as we go through Monday and Tuesday. This is light concentrations, but it will be there. Eastern Washington, eastern Oregon much more.

[00:03:33]You can see that smoke aloft gets a bit heavier as we go off into Tuesday as some of this starts to drift east out of or sorry, drift west out of eastern Washington. You can see that toward the end of the run there into Tuesday evening.

[00:03:46]So taking a look at our overall pattern, you see this low starting to move up um across the region as we are off the California coast and we have this ridging that's bringing us some nice hot weather this week. We're going to have highs in the 90s across a good portion of the area. This is the remnant low from tropical storm Elida and that is going to potentially bring us a round of thunderstorms and dry thunderstorms, dry lightning over the Cascades as we go off into the middle of the week. So, that's something we're going to have to watch closely. You can see that kind of hanging out here on this run of the European model. It kind of hangs out all the way until Friday, then moves off into the jet stream there. So, what is that going to look like in terms of precipitation? Well, as we go into Wednesday here, you can see that there is a little bit of precipitation in the mountains, but very little. And then as we go off into Thursday, you see a little bit off the coast and then moves into the Cascades. All of this will be thunderstorms of the drier variety. Then you can see as we go off into Friday, you maybe get some more showers across parts of um Vancouver Island there. And then precipitation may move back into western Washington in form of a frontal system as we go off into Saturday and Sunday. We'll see how that plays out.

[00:04:53]So, stay tuned for more on that. Looking at precipitable water anomaly, this is the anomaly of the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere at this time of year.

[00:05:01]So, you can see as we go into tomorrow, this is tropical storm Elida. It's weakening off way off the coast of San Diego and you can see as we go through Tuesday into Wednesday, it continues to weaken and just kind of degenerates into that trough that we were looking at.

[00:05:15]But, you see how those remnants of the tropical storm push the moisture up into western Washington there as we go into Wednesday and Thursday and that's kind of helping to fuel some of these thunderstorms going off into Thursday there.

[00:05:27]So, taking a look at the lightning flash density, you can see Wednesday evening, again, another round. This is really bad to see, another round of high-intensity lightning and dry thunderstorms over eastern Oregon and and the Oregon Cascades, maybe a little bit sneaking up here into western Washington's Cascades there. A little bit more west of the crest than before. So, we'll have to see how this plays out Wednesday evening.

[00:05:48]But, then you see as we go into Thursday morning, potentially another round of storms for western Washington. You can see especially from Tacoma southward there, uh really Seattle southward and off into the Cascades Thursday morning.

[00:06:00]Um and into Thursday midday, you see some of these thunderstorm potential.

[00:06:04]And then you can see that thunderstorm potential continues across western Washington into Thursday evening. And then take a look at the Cascades just getting lit up by thunderstorms. And very little rain with these across the Cascades, the Blue Mountains, and the mountains of northeast Washington. You can see those storms start to move northward and diminish as we go off into Thursday night. But, some of that lightning continues for eastern Washington as we go off into Friday. So, this could be another pretty bad fire starting event. You can see looking at the 72-hour precipitation on the European model ending Friday morning that you see with multiple days of storms, the Cascades only pick up up to a tenth of an inch of rain. Not that much rain in these storms across western Washington as well, but that's not a huge concern cuz the storms don't look to last too long. But, take a look at northeast Washington already getting hit hard by fires, potentially another round of fires or fire-starting storms with only a tenth of an inch of rain. So, the dry thunderstorm potential especially on Wednesday and Thursday is very high. And then taking a look at temperatures, this is not going to make things any better.

[00:07:06]We are in the beginning stages of a heat wave here as we go into Monday, you can see highs across western Washington likely in the low to mid 80s, likely some upper 80s east of I-5 in mountain valleys. And from Tacoma southward there, maybe into the low 90s. You can see the coast likely in the mid to upper 70s, and maybe some upper 80s to low 90s for the next few days here across parts of eastern Whatcom County with some downslope flow there out of the Fraser Canyon. Um as we go into Tuesday, you can see those temperatures tick up into the 90s for most of western Washington.

[00:07:38]The coast even up toward the mid 70s to to 80s. Take a look at Seattle up toward 90° Seattle northward on Tuesday likely looking at highs in the mid 80s to low 90s. Seattle southward in the upper 80s to mid 90s maybe near 100 in Portland.

[00:07:51]You can see Wednesday likely the hottest day across the region. Seattle northward in the mid mid 80s to low 90s maybe some mid 90s in the mountain valleys. Seattle southward in the low to mid 90s and the coast likely in the mid to upper 70s.

[00:08:05]And then as we go off toward Thursday we cool down a little bit and by a little bit I mean we're still in the mid to upper 80s with some low 90s near the foothills. Areas north of Everett likely in the low to mid 80s there on Thursday and the coast dropping back to the upper 60s to low 70s. And then finally by Friday we drop back to the upper 70s to mid 80s across western Washington potentially even lower back down to the mid to upper 70s by next Saturday but that's a little bit far out for me to be too confident in it. Taking a look at low temperatures here you can see likely looking at lows in the mid to upper 50s on Monday morning so that's still pretty comfortable but take a look at Tuesday morning things start to get a bit more uncomfortable with those lows getting up into the upper 50s to mid 60s especially around Seattle there you can see lows in the mid 60s but it gets even worse by the time we get to Wednesday morning you can see lows up into the mid to upper 60s especially from Olympia up toward Everett there and across eastern Washington lows in the 70s and then you can see Thursday morning remaining with those lows in the mid 60s for Seattle upper 60s for the rest or sorry upper 50s to low 60s for the rest of the region there Thursday morning. By Friday morning those lows are still in the low 60s in Seattle but dropping into the 50s outside of the city and then by Saturday morning you can see those lows dropping to the low to mid 50s for most of the region upper 50s for Seattle.

[00:09:21]And then just real quick another look at high temperatures there on Wednesday from the European model you can see potentially that marine layer starting to move back in with those highs on the coast maybe down as low as the mid 60s.

[00:09:33]However you go just a bit inland the European model showing Seattle northward highs in the mid 80s to low 90s. Seattle southward you'd see those highs there in about the low 90s there from Seattle to Tacoma and then Tacoma southward you're looking at highs in the mid to upper 90s, maybe near 100 to 101° from Portland south toward Eugene. And take a look at Eastern Washington and Northeast Oregon there just baking with highs in the 100 to 110° range. You're looking at 108° for the Tri-Cities on Wednesday.

[00:10:04]So, definitely a heat wave coming up here for the Pacific Northwest especially for both sides of the Cascades here in Washington and Oregon.

[00:10:13]And then taking a look we do have some heat alerts in effect, heat advisories in effect for the Seattle and Portland areas. Basically the whole I-5 corridor from Salem all the way to the Canadian border. And then an extreme heat watch in effect for areas including Yakima and the Tri-Cities down toward Pendleton.

[00:10:27]So, definitely a lot going on with the air quality alerts as well due to the smoke for Idaho, Skagit County there and then parts of Oregon.

[00:10:35]So, yeah, don't forget there's a new Instagram account here for Western Washington weather. I'll be posting some more stuff on there soon to go and check that out. Link is in the description below. And uh be sure to subscribe here to Western Washington weather for the latest weather updates across the region especially with all the stuff coming up from smoke to the heat wave to the potential for yet another round of thunderstorms starting a lot of fires.

[00:10:54]And then be sure to follow the Western Washington weather Facebook group and follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky as well. Thank you all very much for watching. Stay tuned for more and I will talk to you all later.