Our consistently soggy and cool spring in the Pacific Northwest, has begun to break just a little bit. (Key term is “a little bit” as we will see!) Last Tuesday, May 2, The Dalles saw its first 70-degree high at the local airport. This broke the record from May 1, 1970 for latest first occurrence. The next day, May 3, was our first 80+ in The Dalles (86) and both the first 70 AND first 80 at Portland Airport, at 82 degrees! That’s a first-ever occurrence for them. Our 2-day humid warm spell last Wednesday-Thursday, gave us massive outbreaks of T-storms on Thursday evening. before cooler and ‘drier’ air returned Friday-Saturday. It was very refreshing to have both temps AND dewpoints crash 20 degrees in a single day!

Yesterday Sunday, was a very nice “transition” day from cool back toward warm. The west wind died down a bit, it was completely sunny, and temps were very close to seasonal norms. I took this beautiful photo of Mt. Adams on a drive near Glenwood, WA:

The next 3 days the airmass overhead warms gradually. Today should be a few degrees warmer than yesterday’s 71 in The Dalles. Tomorrow and Wednesday both have an airmass warm enough to support temps near 80. However, there might be clouds moving in again Wednesday ahead of the next cool disturbance. We don’t know, as of this moment, just how nice Wednesday will be…so plan on 2 1/2 more nice days and a possible cloud-up Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday and beyond? We slip back into a cool unsettled pattern.

In mid-May, an airmass like that means high temps in the lowlands in the upper 50s to mid 60s, not more 70s. It might be a good idea to wait a couple more weeks on the warm-weather vegetables, like tomatoes and corn!