Heat wave over Spokane will begin to break Wednesday as city officials consider reforms to bad weather shelters

It’s unusually hot in Spokane this week – more than 20 degrees over the historical average on Monday – but not quite hot enough to trigger cooling shelters, giving local officials a little more time to plan for the summer.

Temperatures peaked around 94 degrees Monday afternoon at Felts Field in Spokane, while the 30-year average for June 9 is just shy of a 72-degree high, according to data from the National Weather Service. Tuesday’s high for the same location is forecast around 90 degrees.

That’s not quite enough to have triggered cooling shelters in the region, which would have expanded capacity at area homeless shelters to allow people a place to go to beat the daytime heat. The city of Spokane currently expands shelter space anytime the National Weather Service forecasts two consecutive days with highs of at least 95 degrees, though the criteria may soon change.

On Monday, as a relatively small part of a package of reforms to local homelessness laws, the Spokane City Council will consider changing its activation criteria away from the absolute forecast temperature and towards the heat index, which factors in relative humidity to more closely simulate how heat will affect the body. Given Monday’s low humidity, around 15%, the heat index was several degrees cooler all day.

The proposal would also change when winter-weather shelter expansion is activated to include wind chill.

“This is a much better measure and indicator of inclement weather than a simple temperature activation measure,” Councilman Zack Zappone said in May when the proposal was announced.

Spokane Valley and Spokane County do not have specific criteria for opening cooling shelters, according to public information officers for either jurisdiction. The county “works with service providers to provide additional surge capacity” during bad weather events, according to a statement forwarded by spokesman Pat Bell, but officials were not able to clarify what that entails before deadline.

Both jurisdictions did point to regional resources available regardless of inclement weather, including area libraries, parks, pools and other spaces where people can cool off.

The weather will cool significantly after Tuesday, trending down to high of only 74 degrees Friday – almost exactly in line with the historical average of 73 degrees.