We just finished one 5-day stretch of temps 80+ each day, including two days in the 90s. After a brief cooldown tomorrow into Thursday, it looks like the “Early Summer” weather is going to return for Memorial Weekend and perhaps beyond.

Pacific Northwesterners normally snicker, every time someone mentions the beginning of summertime at Memorial Day. In MOST years the holiday weekend is very clearly part of our spring season, NOT summer. In the case of The Dalles, the normal high temp on May 25 (the average date of the Saturday before Memorial Day), is 75 degrees F. In Portland, it’s about 69-70 degrees. But there are a fair number of years when a cooler-than-normal “trough” is hanging out nearby over the holiday weekend, bringing rain showers and temps only in the 60s at best.

This year, every day Friday through Monday will at least be in the 80s in the lowlands – and some more 90s are looking very likely as well near The Dalles. It’s been many years since we’ve pulled off that kind of feat!

In the short term…how about that cooldown tonight? Already in the upper 50s in parts of the Portland Metro as of 10pm, and 71 at The Dalles after a high of 93. Quite often the last evening after a hot spell stays pretty warm, with rising dewpoints and sometimes even high clouds. Then the cooler air really punches through the following morning. In this case, it’s a fast-moving “subarctic” airmass from the Alaska region, diving southward over us tonight. That cool air is flooding in much faster than a typical marine push from the west. Not much need for air conditioning tonight!