posted nearly 3 weeks ago, saying that it was “vacation time” for me. True to form, basically NOTHING has happened with the weather since then. July has turned into one big snooze-fest: no triple-digit temps, no T-storms, but no cool patterns either.

We’ve managed to get two minor ‘heat events’ this month, one on the 5th-6th and another for the 22nd through 25th. Both were in the upper 90s. Of course, when the average high temp in late July is 90 degrees, it’s kind of tough to think of 97 or 98 as some kind of event, but anyway…

Oh, and we’re actually running nearly 3 degrees above normal for the first 25 days of the month (+2.7 to be exact). It sure doesn’t feel like a “hot July”, though, when there are zero days at or above 100 degrees. I’m not sure the last 6 days will be hot enough to move the departure needle any higher. But it would be pretty weird to have July end up at +3.0 or hotter, despite not a single 100-degree day.

We’ve been on the edge of a large and hot Interior West ridge, for most of the month. Bend is running about 5 degrees hotter than normal, and the entire southern/eastern part of Oregon is similarly hot. Enough marine air has seeped into the I-5 corridor and the Columbia Gorge, however, to keep extremely hot temps away. But not enough marine air for many cool/cloudy days west side. In short, it’s been a picture-perfect “Mediterranean Summer” in the Pacific Northwest.

It looks like we will finally get some REAL hot weather…the first few days of August! The 6-10 day range shows the hot intermountain ridge coming north for a few days. It’s almost certain we hit 100 for at least a couple days sometime next week, if that forecast holds. GFS ensembles also show some kind of hot spell next week, with the hottest days looking to be very close to 100:

All this is to be expected in pretty much any The Dalles summer. In nearly 70 years’ recorded history there has been only one year that never hit 100. We always get at least a couple heatwaves, even if they are brief. In fact, summer heatwaves are far more of a “guarantee” in our climate than a winter arctic blast is: three of the past 10 winters saw no arctic airmass enter the Columbia River Gorge.

It’s also true that our climate is already changing, in ways that will make summers like 2014 and 2015 far more common in the not-too-distant future. That’s not going to be fun to live through, if you ask me!