Cooler weather, chance of showers coming this week

Enjoy the rest of today. The blue skies and temperatures in the 80s aren’t going to last. The National Weather Service is forecasting that a persistent low pressure area is headed into the region over the next several days, and may be reinforced by a second low next weekend at the start of the July 4 holiday. Highs for today were expected to be 85 degrees in downtown Spokane, Liberty Lake and Coeur d’Alene; 86 degrees for Post Falls; and 83 degrees at Spokane International Airport. The airport had 81 at 3 p.m. Highs on Saturday and Sunday were both 79 degrees at the airport. The warmest temperature so far this year has been 81 at the airport, which occurred last Thursday and on May 16. A 20 percent chance of thunderstorms is in the forecast for the Spokane area tonight as the change in weather gets started. Forecasters said they expect mostly sunny skies on Tuesday and Wednesday with temperatures cooling a few degrees each day. A low pressure system arriving from the northwest this week will bring increasing clouds and 20 percent chances of showers on Thursday and Friday. Highs will drop from the upper 70s on Tuesday to middle 70s on Wednesday to lower 70s on Thursday and Friday. Lows start out the week in the middle 50s tonight dropping to the upper 40s later in the week. At 7 a.m. today, it was 59 at the airport and in Deer Park; 63 at Felts Field; and 61 in Coeur d’Alene and Pullman.