A hot first for Seattle
SEATTLE – Make that an iced coffee.
While rain showers soaked the Northeast and Midwest on Friday, Seattle residents dusted off the sunscreen and shorts as the National Weather Service issued its first heat advisory for the city.
The advisory covering the urban corridor from Tacoma north to Everett was prompted by a second day of record temperatures. Friday’s high of 89 degrees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport broke a 33-year-old record. Thursday’s high – also 89 degrees – broke a 58-year-old record. Official temperature records date to the mid-1940s.
Danny Mercer, a forecaster in the National Weather Service’s Seattle office, said the idea of the advisory was to warn the elderly, the young, the ill and those with heart conditions of the potential dangers of activity in the heat in a region that doesn’t see much of it.
Temperatures were expected to cool over the weekend, and Weather Service meteorologist Dustin Guy said the heat advisory would not be renewed for today.
As for the unseasonable heat, “maybe we’ll see it again, maybe we won’t. It’s hard to say,” Guy said. “A simple switch of wind direction will change things a lot around here.”
In the meantime, Phyllis Cameron, 92, planned to keep cool with lots of iced tea and a few gin and tonics.
“I’m just going to enjoy it on the chaise on my deck,” the lifelong Seattle resident said Friday.
The Weather Service suggested people drink lots of water, stay indoors and out of the sun, in air conditioning if possible, and check on relatives and neighbors.
The advice didn’t seem to be taking. Winter-pale flesh was on display in the city’s parks, and the streets were busy with people drinking iced coffee instead of Seattle’s trademark lattes.
The organizers of the annual Northwest Folklife music festival welcomed the heat, which boosted attendance for the normally slow first day.
People of all ages crowded into Seattle Center, enjoying the music, the sun, the food and the giant International Fountain, where cool water shoots 120 feet into the air.
Last year it rained, said Rafael Maslan, 20, a festival board member.
“If it rains, it’s a mess,” Maslan said.
Donna Hawkey of suburban Lake Forest Park and Levana Fletcher of Seattle, who brought their young children to the fountain, said they wouldn’t have minded a little rain to keep the crowds and the temperature down.
Hawkey said they had been keeping cool in the shade, but by 12:30 p.m. the breeze had all but disappeared and the heat was starting to affect them. “I think I’m going to have to get wet, too,” she said.
Heidi Williams, 22, and Brendan McGill, 24, were keeping cool with some iced coffee a few blocks away in their Queen Anne neighborhood.
“We always drink hot,” said Williams, a Seattle native.
“Except for the last two days because it’s so hot outside, we want ice,” added McGill, who grew up in Alaska.