Hottest days have passed

During the last week, I’ve been asked to talk about recent weather extremes in the Inland Northwest.

On Aug. 17, both the Spokane International Airport and Coeur d’Alene reported record high temperatures of 103 degrees. Within three days, readings dropped more than 30 degrees with rain across much of our region. That 103 degree reading also was the warmest reading everfor so late in the season. The previous record was 103 degrees set on Aug. 10, 1898.

We have likely seen our hottest day of summer. Between now and the start of fall in September, we should continue to see a back-and-forth weather pattern of warm days followed by much cooler temperatures with occasional rain showers. Don’t be too surprised to see an isolated thunderstorm or two.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, I believe we’re in a long-term climatological cycle of weather extremes. It was discovered that extreme periods in our Earth’s weather history occur approximately every 500 years. Our current cycle started in the late 1960s and is likely to continue for another 30 years. It also has been the strongest in about 1,000 years.

Weather records are falling on a daily basis. Information from the National Climatic Data center show that more than 60,000 temperature and precipitation records have fallen since Jan. 1, 2008. In 2007, more than 112,000 extremes were reported in the U.S. alone.

Within the last 10 years, we’ve seen disastrous floods in the Midwest and rare snows in parts of the Middle East. In the Inland Northwest we’ve observed wide temperature swings from hot to cold, and vice-versa, within days. And don’t forget the record and near-record snows in our region last winter.

I see a bit wetter and cooler fall season developing as we’re no longer in a La Niña, cooler than normal sea-surface temperature pattern. A new El Niño is forming in the equatorial waters of the Pacific Ocean.

There will be chances of early frosts and freezes, especially at the higher elevations above the 3,000 feet level away from the warming bodies of water. The valley floor locations could see readings in the 20s by late September or the first week of October.

November and December, however, may actually turn out to be slightly warmer than usual for the late fall and early winter seasons, if the new, currently weak, El Niño gains strength as expected in the tepid waters of the Pacific.

I also see much less snow during the upcoming winter than the all-time record amounts gauged last season.