The kids may be back in school and the nights may be getting longer, but technically, there are still two weeks left of summer.
And Mother Nature is intent on making that all the more obvious the next several days.
A burgeoning ridge of high pressure will scoot directly over the Northwest through Thursday, sending temperatures soaring into the upper 80s under blazing blue skies. The late-summer heat even has the potential to threaten a couple of daily records, including Seattle’s all-time high temperature marks for both Wednesday and Thursday.
The warm-up is already underway this afternoon, with temperatures pulling above the mid 70s for the first time since Labor Day. With a smattering of clouds expected to move in later tonight, we shouldn’t get much toastier, topping out around 80 degrees in the next hour or so.
The clouds thicken up overnight, preventing the mercury from dropping much below the 60-degree mark tomorrow morning. This should result in yet another above-average low temperature for Seattle—amazingly, we’ve now logged 32 straight. (The normal low for this time of year is 54 degrees.)
After the gray start, temperatures rebound back to 80 tomorrow under mostly sunny skies. The mercury then nudges up another few notches on Tuesday as high pressure centers itself overhead.
We really get cooking on Wednesday—for September, that is—as the surface winds flip from west to east. This will allow for a bundle of hot air at the surface—otherwise known as a thermal trough—to bank up off the coastline. In response, temperatures will vault into the upper 80s along the I-5 corridor and all the way out to the coast. In fact, the record high for the day will be in serious jeopardy in both Seattle and Forks (it’s 87 for both spots).
The coast cools back down on Thursday as a boatload of marine air rushes in, but for Seattle, things will remain fairly warm. With temperatures hovering in the mid 80s, we’ll have another shot at snagging a new all-time high—the mark to beat for Thursday is 85 degrees, from 1975.
The heat finally subsides late Thursday into Friday as the thermal trough heads east, opening the door for cooler ocean air to trickle in. Still, high temperatures will only slip into the upper 70s as the sun eventually beats back any morning clouds.
And summer hangs on for yet another day.
