Hot August Night Smashes Record For The Highest Low

This may not be global warming, but Inland Northwest nights have been abnormally warm this week.

Spokane shattered a daily record for the warmest overnight low early Tuesday when the thermometer dipped to a balmy 72 degrees at Spokane International Airport. The record for Aug. 5 was 66 degrees, set in 1952.

A high, thin cloud cover acted like an atmospheric blanket, preventing the daytime heat from radiating upward during the night, forecasters said.

The warmest night ever in Spokane was on July 27, 1928, when the thermometer got down to a tropical 77 degrees in the early morning. That followed the city’s record high of 108 degrees the day before.

Average temperatures for early August are 85 degrees during the day and 56 degrees at night, about the hottest time of year.

Forecasters said the heat wave should let up by tonight and Thursday as a push of cooler Pacific air replaces the sizzle.

Highs will return to the lower to middle 80s by Sunday.

Scattered thunderstorms are predicted for tonight.

Ron Miller, forecaster for the National Weather Service in Spokane, said Sunday’s sudden surge of heat may have been brought by east winds that warmed as they dropped down the west slopes of the Rockies.

The Inland Northwest normally gets a week or two of hot weather in the summer, and it usually tops out at or just below 100 degrees.

Tuesday’s high was 96 degrees, and the forecast for today calls for another 96-degree high. This comes after Sunday and Monday nearly reached the triple-digit mark.

If today’s forecast holds, early August will have seen four 90-plus days, compared with four 90-plus highs in all of July.

Spokane has an average of 16 days of 90 degrees or higher during the season.

“I don’t see this as anything abnormal,” Miller said. “People ask if this is global warming. No. This is just summer.”

, DataTimes