It’s sure been a hot July in the Pacific Northwest, including the Columbia River Gorge! Here in The Dalles, our temperatures for the first 17 days of the month are running about 4.0 degrees F above normal. The warmth is especially concentrated in the high temps, which are 6 degrees above normal. We’ve also had a major heatwave from the 12th through 16th, with 5 triple digit days: 102, 101, 101, 105, 103.

Yesterday the 17th, a strong west wind kicked up during the daytime and our high temp was “only” 99. Early in the afternoon, standing in the hot dry wind, I remember thinking to myself: “this is sure a tinderbox, I wonder if a fire will pop up somewhere nearby?”

Well…within a couple hours, guess what I spotted on the horizon to the southeast of town? As it turns out, a fire started along Highway 197 near the Celilo Converter Station, and the wind quickly spread it eastward. Within a few hours it had burned over 10,000 acres, and was declared a conflagration by the governor. The fire raged eastward across rural Wasco County, and jumped the Deschutes River overnight.

As of Wednesday evening, the fire has spread to roughly 45,000 acres. Several structures were destroyed, including the historic Charles E. Nelson farmhouse near Dufur. And most tragic of all, one person was killed when fire enveloped his tractor. Evacuation orders are in force for much of Sherman County now, including the towns of Moro, Grass Valley and Wasco.

Is there any hope for the weather the next couple of days? Not really. Winds are expected to remain strong, with low humidity and temps at least in the mid-upper 80s. That will further fan the flames across the arid prairies and wheat fields. I have a feeling this fire is nowhere near its final size yet.

Looking ahead…we go from windy and seasonably warm the rest of this week…back to hot again early next week. Here is today’s 12z GFS ensemble plot for The Dalles Airport:

Unfortunately, the caption at the top is blocking some of the graph – but I think we can deduce an 850mb airmass Monday-Wednesday next week, near +25 degrees Celsius. That’s definitely hot enough to hit the low 100s again for a few days.

The 6-10 day NCEP outlook seems to agree with the overall hot pattern:

The 8-14 day map looks almost the same, except the warm zone extends slightly further eastward. Notice the strong cool signal over the north central U.S., and a blazing hot ridge along the West Coast. Much of the country is going to be left wondering “Where did summer go?” while those of us west of the Rockies will be screaming “Enough is enough!” July 2018 is now all but certain to go down as a very hot one; at least 3 degrees above normal at DLS and likely closer to 4 degrees.

Looking further ahead….I guess things could still change, but if we don’t see a shift to a cooler pattern in the Northwest by the 2nd week of August, then Summer 2018 is destined to go down as the fifth warm/hot summer in a row. We haven’t had a truly cool August since the mid-1990s, and I keep wondering when we will finally get one again. Unfortunately, I have a strong feeling this won’t be the year for it. Most of the long-range seasonal outlooks suggest that we stay hot and dry in the West, well into early fall.