Seattle, Portland sweat as heat reaches records

PORTLAND – It’s feeling more like Phoenix in the Pacific Northwest this week, with temperatures throughout the region spiking along with demand for the cool comforts of air conditioning, water fountains and icy treats.

The National Weather Service reported the temperature at Portland International Airport reached a record 106 degrees, well past the previous airport record of 101 set in 1998 but still short of the 107 all-time mark for the Portland area set in 1981.

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, it was a tie with 1998 when the temperature climbed to 97 degrees on Tuesday.

Today “looks brutal,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Jay Albrecht, with Seattle getting close to – if not over – the all-time record temperature of 100 degrees set July 20, 1994, at Sea-Tac.

“There’s not going to be a whole lot of places to get away from the heat tomorrow,” he said. “Really, the whole Northwest right now, especially west of the Cascades, is cooking.”

Heat advisories were issued throughout the region. In Portland, where residents are used to temperate summer days that come with overcast mornings and crisp evenings, the warning is in effect until 10 tonight.

“The thing about a place like Portland is there are some buildings and residences that don’t have air conditioning,” said Andy Bryant, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service. “You go to Phoenix or Dallas, yes it would be very hot there, too, but they have more of a system in place to deal with it.”

A Home Depot in Portland had to order up air conditioners from one of the coastal stores to restock for the week. They came in Tuesday morning only to sell out three hours later, said Cliff Baker, a Home Depot employee. “Fans are even getting hard to find.”

Fire departments, the Red Cross, municipalities and emergency service agencies throughout the region were offering ideas for respite. Cooling centers for the elderly were open late in Portland, and the city of Seattle extended hours for the International Fountain, where hundreds of people soaked in the changing sprays timed to recorded music.

In Washougal, Wash., the Fire Department opened up an air-conditioned training room to help cool folks off, and set up a shower in a city park during the afternoon.

Even some normally cool spots on the Oregon coast were hotter than normal, with Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River reaching 92, busting the city’s old record of 82 set in 2003.

It was a similar event in Hoquiam on Grays Harbor in Washington state, where the temperature reached 93 to crush the old record of 81 degrees that dated to 1965.

The hot weather has been affecting southern Oregon longer than most of the rest of the state, with temperatures in Medford pushing up to 108 on Tuesday to break the old record of 105 set in 2003.

The temperatures in western Oregon were higher than the desert areas of the typically hotter eastern half of the state, where no records were broken on Tuesday, said Miles Higa, a weather service forecaster in Portland.

Temperatures in the Spokane area are forecast in the 90s the rest of the week, which is a little above normal. More worrisome is a forecast for thunderstorms that could produce lightning that ignites wildfires.