StormTeam 12 Blog

  A nice comfortable day again today...after a very chilly start!  I see Hillsboro made it into the upper 30s, so it's definitely moving into Fall with respect to nighttime temps.  We made it up to 81 after a low of 52 at PDX!

So this is part of my new and improved "efficient time-management" era.  Generally someone else will be doing the weather on our sister station KPDX at 8pm.  A nice little break so it seems like a good time to blog don't you think?

We had just about flat pressure gradients from the Coast to Eastside today.  That should change overnight tonight as we get a slightly stronger easterly gradient than what we had Monday.  That will push east wind across the entire metro area by tomorrow afternoon.  So expect a chilly start again, but a very fast warm up.  I see 850mb temps creep up to the +17 to +18 range too.  We MIGHT hit 90 at PDX, close call there.  Either way it'll be briefly hot in the afternoon.

It's back to onshore flow for Friday and most of Saturday...then a change.

Models show the upper level ridge popping back up directly over the Northwest Sunday and Monday.  This time the atmosphere overhead is going to be quite a bit warmer than with the easterly flow conditions over the weekend or coming up for tomorrow.  850mb temps rise to the +22 or +23 mark both afternoons and models have been very consistent the last 48 hours with these temps.  The thermal trough also seems to develop farther to the west, due to a stronger surface high dropping down into the Rockies.  This is beginning to look like a Coastal hot period too.  It all adds up to a brief late season heat wave...time to up the temps on the 7 Day forecast a bit.  The "magic chart" says 93-96!  Since it's not the end of September, this is quite reasonable considering the 850mb temps + offshore flow.

I also notice that there is no sudden onshore push for Tuesday or Wednesday.  It's more of a lingering upper-level high but slowly dropping heights sort of setup.  So summer is going to continue awhile longer...Mark Nelsen

I keep forgetting to mention this on the blog.  In case you didn't know it, the meteorologists here at KPTV do school visits each week.  We take a 45 minute presentation to just about anywhere wihin about 30 miles of downtown Portland.  OCCASIONALLY a bit farther away.  I'm planning a "Valley Day" and a "Lower Columbia" day this year.  I'll try to hit 4 schools in those areas in just one day.

Moving on to the weather...it's getting chilly out there quickly!  I notice PDX is running 14 degrees cooler this evening.  Also some cloud cover sliding south out of S.W. Washington.  I'm not too concerned about either one, although hopefully my low temp forecasts aren't too high.  This is from a shortwave trough sliding south out of Alberta and into Western Montana.  This heads off to the S.E. tomorrow, with surface high pressure building in behind it.  That turns our flow back to offshore/easterly by tomorrow evening and Thursday.  Then another wave shifts flow back to onshore Friday and Saturday.  A bit of a see-saw with the pressure gradients for sure.

Models are very consistent on a much stronger and warmer thermal trough forming near or at the Coast Sunday-Monday.  Depending on the positioning, this could bring the 80-90 degree temps to the beaches Sunday.  Something to keep an eye on.

The posting times are going to change since my shift has changed slightly.  Most nights I'll be leaving right after the 10:36pm weathercast since I'm coming in a bit earlier for our 4-6pm newscasts.  So...I need to post a bit earlier.  We'll see how it goes...Mark Nelsen

A very short post tonight because things were a bit messy in the weather center this evening.  We added two more hours of news tonight...a 5pm and 8pm hour.

East wind was a bit more persistent than I expected today.  The high of 89 was 3 degrees higher than I expected.  But now we're back to weak onshore flow the next two days.

Next Sunday and Monday we may see a strong thermal trough for temps around 90, but models are in some disagreement about the details...sunshine until further notice! Mark Nelsen

I found this nifty little graphic this evening from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Guam.  I had a viewer ask the perennial question about why we don't have Hurricanes on the West Coast.  Of course that lead to me poking around the Internet.  You need to click on the image here to get a much larger view.  Notice that the cool ocean water off the West Coast of North America is quite obviously a "storm killer".

So the answer to the viewer is that you need 80 degree water to develop/intensify any sort of tropical cyclone.  It's too cold up here on the West Coast.

No weather to really talk about this evening.  I noticed the 88 degree high at PDX was way up there on the "magic chart".  The 850mb temp of +15 over SLE this afternoon could have produced a high between 76 and 86 on an average day in early September.  We made it to that 88 degrees which probably exemplifies the perfect setup:  solid sun, dry airmass, easterly wind that wasn't too strong for maximum mixing.

Onshore flow Tuesday-Wednesday goes back to offshore Thursday-Friday.  Onshore Saturday then offshore again next Sunday.  Our warm/dry/sunny spell continues until further notice!  Mark Nelsen

  Tonight was one of those SLOW weather nights!  One where I spent an hour lining up my school visits using little icons to indicate status, and checking out Phil Hendrie characters.  I stared at the sky for a few minutes etc...

Poor Grand Turk island tonight.  Looks like the eyewall of a very strong category 4 IKE is passing directly overhead right now.  It's headed for the large Bahamian Island called Inagua, then on to Cuba.  We'll see where it ends up.  Obviously it's going to be the main weather story through this upcoming work week.

No changes in my forecast thinking for the next two days.  Easterly flow begins later tonight and continues until Monday afternoon.  Enjoy the sunshine!  Mark Nelsen

  Quite a spell of nice weather continues through the foreseeable future.  I hope you all enjoy the weekend, I'll be here working each afternoon/evening.  But don't cry for me, I'll get those days back in October...it all evens out in the end.

The 6-10 day 500mb. anomaly map is to the left.  It shows a positive anomaly sitting just to our west for the next 6-10 days.  Some models show the ridging developing right over us the end of next week.  If so, we would get warmer than the 85-88 that I expect this Sunday and Monday.

Tonight the low clouds are surging inland, up the Columbia River Valley.  They reached Kelso/Longview before 10pm.  With higher dewpoints and the long September night ahead, we should have no problem developing some thin cloud cover over the metro area for Saturday morning.  Still a nice breakout for the afternoon though.

Easterly flow develops overhead from just above the surface to over 6000' tomorrow night through Monday afternoon.  This should give us a good temperature jump Sunday and Monday, as I mentioned above.

Beyond that a system moves over the top of the ridge and slides down through the Rockies.  This gives us a good push of cooler air Tuesday and Wednesday.  Then another Fall surface high slides down to our east beginning next Thursday, repeating the switch back to easterly flow.  I remember the first Fall in my weather career (1991) was similar to this, with off/on easterly flow and warm/sunny weather through early October.  I love it; the warm sunny days and crisp/cool nights and mornings...Mark Nelsen

  I got an email from a viewer in the last few days, mentioning that his wife complained about the "crappy" summer weather we had this year.  So I figured it was time to take a look.  We started cool...of course.  That was the end of our very chilly spring.  Then the numbers say we were near normal July-August.  I did notice that most other parts of the region ended up slightly cool for August though.  So far September is looking pretty mild too (the first half only!).  We didn't have a wet summer either...except for the last 10 days of August, which were a bit gray and cool.  There were a few strange things about the summer though:

1.  Lots of cool nights after mid-July.  We had night after night of chilly temps, which would account for my green tomatoes right now.

2.  Just a few brief heat waves.  Mid May (2 90 deg. days), End of June (2 hot days).  The first 15 days or so of July had steadily warm weather, but no extreme heat.  Then the next time it got really hot was briefly the first week of August for a day or so.  The mid-August heat wave was the hottest with very warm overnight temps as well.  For the high elevation spots, that heat wave was the warmest in years.  As of now, there's no sign of 90 degrees temps in the next 7 days or so.

3.  Better than last summer!  Let's be a bit more positive, last summer was very gray and drippy in the 2nd half.  This year was far more reasonable to me.

4.  For those of you that love hot/sunny summers west of the Cascades, you have been spoiled through the early 2000s by some extra hot temps, so this last summer may seem cool to you.

No changes to the forecast...mild, but not hot weather the next 7-10 days as an upper-level ridge lingers near the West Coast...Mark Nelsen

Okay, no pretty picture tonight because the high quality software won't allow me for some strange reason.  I have better things to do than trying to get it in the blog for 10 minutes.

What a stable weather pattern.  I don't see any significant change for at least a week.  So MAYBE I will get orange pumpkins and red tomatoes!  Instead of green pumpkins and green tomatoes.  I know a lot of you hate this weather, but I love waking up to the sunshine.  Winter will eventually come, and having it drippy and gray for days on end in September or October is a total waste if there's no chance of a windstorm or snow.  Or at least that's my opinion!

I did lower the temps on the 7 Day forecast based on 00z models. Neither the NAM or GFS support temps near 90 for Sunday, so it's gone.

Now, discuss among yourselves.  Mark Nelsen

A busy weekend for me while I helped out on the MDA Telethon.  But now it's back to weather.  I'm filling in this weekend as well, so it's day 3 of a 13 day stretch...anyone crying for me yet?

I know a lot of you weather geeks can't wait for winter, but I want some more summer (or early Fall warmth?).  I came in today, looked at the maps, and see that Mother Nature is going to deliver.  A relatively strong upper-level ridge is developing offshore and will pretty much sit there through at least the middle of next week.  This time of year the marine layer tends to thin easily with the loss of strong onshore flow.  The longer nights and cooler continent help that along.  Basically it becomes easier to get offshore flow or at least no significant onshore flow with a ridge nearby.  That's why the Coast often has more sunshine in September than any summer month.  That's the case the next 5-7 days.  With the ridge remaining offshore, I doubt it'll get to 90 degrees here in Portland, although stronger offshore flow Sunday-Monday might push us close.  At least this time of year even 90 degrees isn't so hot since temps rapidly move up/down from day to night.  The heat only lasts a few hours in the late afternoon.

So not too much to talk about weatherwise.  Enjoy the warm sunshine!    Mark Nelsen

So why not look at the latest NHC forecast for Gustav.  Exciting times ahead in the Gulf of Mexico apparently.  (11:10pm update:  00z HWRF intensifies the storm to 200 mph in the Gulf and makes a direct hit on New Orleans!  Link is here)That plus Russia saying they may cut off oil this weekend could make the energy situation even MORE interesting, but that's well beyond the scope of my little weather blog.

A surge of moisture into our airmass this evening...dewpoints have pushed up to around or just above 60 degrees.  Looks like a slight push up the Columbia River did it.  This goes really well with MOS data that showed high dewpoints (for us) tomorrow, then sudden drying with dewpoints into the 40s tomorrow night and Saturday behind a mainly dry cold front.

Quite a sharp trough dropping in Saturday and Sunday.  I like the look...if it was January.  A strong wave rotates south into the Pacific Northwest around a cold polar vortex over western/central Canada.  This could probably bring a nice show of low elevation snow (or at least in the hills) and then cold/dry air from the north.

Not much else to say tonight and I'm running a bit behind.  Mark Nelsen

I figure the weather is REALLY slow lately, so let's spice up the discussion with some data.

You may remember that the least amount of Arctic Sea Ice Cover was recorded last September.  Of course thats the least since satellite measurements began around 30 years ago...keep that in mind.

Of course each winter a large area refreezes and then melts in the spring/summer.  So obviously you can ONLY compare the maximum in any winter and/or the minimum at the end of each summer.  I remember some posters last winter mentioning that the sea ice had "recovered".  It does that every year.  But how low is the minimum each September or how high is the maximum in March?  Well, take a look at the chart.  As of today, 2008 has the 2nd lowest sea ice cover on record.  Notice the line is dropping quickly and probably will for another week to 3 weeks.  This year MAY end up with the smallest ice cover on record!  Here's the press release from the National Snow/Ice Data Center.

So what does that have to do with our weather?  Not much, at least in the short term, but it's like screaming tornado in a theater full of weather nuts.  Just something fun for this cool Tuesday evening.

The arctic climate is clearly warming, that's no surprise, but will it continue?  Sunspots anyone?  IPCC?  Mothership behind the moon?  Smoking Man?  Cylons? Go ahead and discuss, just don't get up in each other's "grills" and make me have to ban anyone.

My thoughts on global warming are here.  Feel free to put yours in the comments below.

Mark Nelsen 

I just noticed this evening that we're within .09" of our average August rainfall.  That shouldn't be too hard to get Sunday evening or early Monday morning.  The approaching cold front sure won't be a soaker, especially compared to the last one earlier this week.  But maybe .20" is a likely number for PDX.  Otherwise nice sunshine again for tomorrow and briefly again Sunday morning.  A bit more easterly flow than expected this morning.  I see Corbett gusted over 30 mph.  I stopped by and fixed the minor networking issue out there yesterday.  Got to have that thing working for the approaching east wind season!  I see the easterly gradient has not returned this evening, so we'll only have a light easterly drift early tomorrow before onshore flow returns late in the day.  But with a warmer airmass, I still expect 5-7 degrees warming.  We hit 81 today, so that should get us in the 86-89 degree range tomorrow.

Not a whole lot to talk about this evening otherwise...I'll be working all next week, so more blogging then.  Enjoy the warm weekend!  Mark Nelsen

Apparently I chose the wettest, coolest, most useless days to take off in the month of August.  I was off Monday-Wednesday, although Saturday and Sunday were neat with the thunderstorms and nice warm nights (Luckily, I have a heat pump that keeps the house cool during the day).

I took my usual between-show ride this evening.  It's obvious that I can only do that for a few more weeks...that sun angle is getting pretty low by 7:30 pm.  And in two weeks I'll won't be able to even start until 6:30pm.  Well, I'll be back at it in March.

As for weather?  It's a bit slow this evening.  Clouds gradually clearing out behind all the muck of the last few days.  Plenty of clearing and wet ground should lead to some fog or low clouds later tonight.  Weak or slightly offshore flow tomorrow and Saturday plus 850mb temps peaking out around +16 should give us highs in the mid-80s Saturday.  Earlier I had a 90, but that was based on the "east wind" part of my chart.  As I mentioned, 00z models have very weak or light east flow on Saturday, so I dumped that 90 degree idea as fast as Northwest weather geeks run from high pressure and inversions in the winter.

Models seem to be slightly faster with the next trough/cold front for late Sunday.  Looks like the Coast may be wet the 2nd half of the day, with rain into the interior by sunset.

Some sort of ridging and warmer temps comes back in the middle of the week.  Mark Nelsen

As always you can click on the image for a closer view, but my main reason for posting on a day off is to save the lightning image from last nights storm for posterity...or at least for the blog.  It's quite possible that you slept through the action (as I did) if you live in the middle of the city or eastside of town.  Lots of strikes from I-5 westward and down into Marion County east of I-5 too.  A heck of a warm night.  IF we don't get a massive marine push before midnight tonight, we'll probably break our all-time August low temperature record (the warm one) of 68 degrees.  We tied it yesterday.

I'm up so early because I was woken up by a strong northwest wind around 6:10am.  That early of a wake up call makes me tired, but I can catch up when it's clouds, cool, and drizzly sometime in the next 3 days.  There must have been some leftover outflow from a thunderstorm, but 22 mph seemed REAL windy with every single house/door on my house open.  I slept through the action overnight, except that first cell that formed around midnight in Clackamas county.  I saw plenty of lightning from that, but then fell asleep. 

Not wanting to get anyone too excited, but I see SPC has us (or at least the Cascades) in the SLIGHT chance for severe weather this afternoon/evening.  Here is their morning discussion:

...THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS LATER THIS AFTERNOON INTO
   TONIGHT FOR THE ORE CASCADES AREA...
  
   ...WA/ORE CASCADES AREA THIS AFTERNOON INTO TONIGHT...
   A PLUME OF LOW-MID LEVEL MOISTURE HAS SPREAD NWD OVER ORE/WA...NEAR
   AND IMMEDIATELY W OF THE CASCADES...AND THIS MOISTURE HAS SUPPORTED
   A FEW THUNDERSTORMS OVERNIGHT FROM NW ORE INTO WRN WA.  THIS INITIAL
   CONVECTION WILL LIKELY WEAKEN LATER THIS MORNING...WITH ADDITIONAL
   THUNDERSTORM DEVELOPMENT EXPECTED OVER THE ORE CASCADES LATER THIS
   AFTERNOON/EVENING IN CONJUNCTION WITH DAYTIME HEATING AND THE
   APPROACH OF EMBEDDED WEAK SPEED MAXIMA IN ADVANCE OF AN ERN PAC MID
   LEVEL TROUGH.  OBSERVATIONS OF STEEP MID LEVEL LAPSE RATES ATOP
   BOUNDARY LAYER DEWPOINTS RANGING FROM THE MID 50S TO LOCALLY LOWER
   60S WILL CONTRIBUTE TO MLCAPE VALUES OF 1000-1500 J/KG BY LATER THIS
   AFTERNOON/EVENING.  THE COMBINATION OF MODERATE INSTABILITY AND
   GRADUALLY INCREASING VERTICAL SHEAR THIS AFTERNOON INTO TONIGHT
   APPEARS SUFFICIENT FOR SUPERCELLS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING LARGE HAIL
   AND DAMAGING WINDS. 

Okay, let's hope for some more this afternoon or evening!  Mark Nelsen

A short post tonight, because I got behind making graphics for an extra segment.

We really lost the surface easterly flow today, in fact when I drove through Corbett, at the west end of the Gorge, it was calm around 11am.

So I think it's somewhat amazing that we still made it into the low 100s in the middle of August with no east wind in the metro area.  That's a really hot airmass!  I see Timberline Lodge made it to 82 degrees, that's the warmest I think I've ever seen on that sensor.

No significant changes for tomorrow.  Obviously the marine seepage is pumping humidity into our hot airmass; dewpoints have been rising this evening.  But the large-scale easterly flow continues through the day tomorrow, so I don't expect any major cooling push tomorrow until after peak heating time.

Models have come together on a strong shortwave swinging northeast through the region Sunday night and Monday AM.  This might be a great setup for a quick thunderstorm outbreak...something to keep an eye on for the next day or so.  This type of a shortwave moving through Eastern Oregon has brought a severe weather outbreak several times in my forecasting life here in Portland.

Okay, time to go...I'll be on vacation, one last time, Monday-Wednesday.  Next post will be Thursday...unless it gets really exciting Sunday night...Mark Nelsen

Whew!  That was getting stressful about noon when PDX was only 82 degrees.  I had a weak moment when I doubted my forecasting, but now at least we all know the temp CAN rise 20 degrees from noon to 5pm in Portland.  A nice even number to keep in our memory banks.  And we did this with easterly wind only surfacing east of I-205.  It has been a bit weaker than expected, and only a few isolated hills outside of the Gorge will continue to see the breeze overnight.  If you've lost the wind this evening, you probably won't see it again until midday tomorrow.

There is no significant change to the atmospheric temperature or windflow over the next 36 hours.  Easterly flow from near the surface to 5000' continues until midday Saturday.  I don't see any good reason that the wind will move any farther into the metro area tomorrow, so I figure just a notch or two of warming due to a slightly warmer atmosphere.  So I bumped the 103 up to a 104.  I hope we don't get a surprise 106...that would be really weird since I don't think we've ever hit that before (105 and 107, but no 106).

Looking at our RPM model and the WRF-GFS it looks like we don't even get any seepage of marine air until AFTER peak heating Saturday.  So I subtracted 4 degrees from Friday's high due to the easterly flow ending.  Either way we may actually have 3 days at/above 100 degrees...that's very rare at PDX.

Quite a push Sunday...I've got 84, although 00z models show quite a bit more digging of the approaching upper trough offshore than they showed 12 hours ago.  That COULD delay the cooling a bit, or at least weaken the push so that we still get around 90 on Sunday. 

If we hit 103 or higher tomorrow, it'll be our warmest August day since the great heat wave of 1981.  And, as Steve Pierce pointed out (the data master), we haven't had 3 days at/above 100 degrees since that July heat wave in 1994...Mark Nelsen

I took another bike ride between shows tonight, it was a bit too warm for my liking...but better tonight than tomorrow eh?  I think so.  I notice we are already running warmer this evening even without out any downslope flow yet and the really warm atmosphere hasn't arrived.

I don't really have any big changes from last night's thinking. 

The only thing I see different right now compared to last night is that models are sure keeping the forecast heat going;  if anything it is slightly more intense.  850mb temps of +23 to +24 tomorrow and +26 at SLE Friday PM.  That's hot!  The offshore flow is just perfect both days with a thermal trough over the Willamette Valley from tomorrow morning through midday Saturday.  That 26 degree temp is off my August magic chart.  There have been no other +26 degree 850mb temps since at least 1999 in August.  And only 2 since the late 1990's even in July!  This may truly be "off the chart" weather.  To add to the fire...I see our RPM model has the valley at 105 degrees on Friday.  As I mentioned yesterday, I haven't ever seen it forecast temps too warm in a hot spell.

This is a somewhat long period of easterly flow compared to some other hot spells.  So we'll have tomorrow AND Friday nights where east wind will be blowing over the ridgetops and through the west end of the Gorge the entire night.  The WRF from the UW shows some spots in the foothills and Gorge not getting below 80 degrees both nights.  It's going to be tough sleeping in Troutdale and Gresham tomorrow night!  Stay cool...Mark Nelsen

Wait!  There's more...Steve Pierce has just filled my inbox with another email.  Good info here:  "If we get to 102 on Friday at PDX, it will be the single hottest August day in 21 years. It was 102 in Aug of 1987 and has never been hotter in August, since (correction from mark:  we did hit 102 Aug 13th, 2002). I remember that summer and I am sure you do as well.   Also, if it makes it to 103 Friday, then it will be the hottest August day in 27 years. It was last 103 or higher in Aug of 1981 as you know. So, this August heat wave could really be a once in a 25 yr event, depending on how you look at it."

Thanks Steve.

Okay, I'm having trouble uploading an image tonight.   So I give up for now.

No big changes this evening, except I warmed up the heatwave forecast slightly based on several things.  I think we may hit 100 for only the 4th time in August during the last 20 years:

1.  Mesoscale models now show a sharper thermal trough west of the Cascades (but not at the Coast) from Thursday morning through Saturday morning.  Easterly flow from neawr the surface to 5,000' begins late tomorrow night and continues through the period.  2-3 millibars of pressure gradient through the Gorge increases the possiblity of afternoon east wind both days making it somewhere between PDX and TTD here in the metro area.  That has been just "perfect" for maximum heating at PDX the last few summers.

2.  Now our RPM model and the UW-WRF/GFS show surface temps up to 96 or higher both Thursday and Friday.  Our model has tended to be too cool during hot spells (most of the time) the last few summers.

3.  GFS, ECMWF, and NAM all show 850mb temps peaking out around 24-25 both days.  If it was July, we'd be forecasting 102-105 degrees.  But in mid-August you need quite a bit more easterly wind to overcome the longer nights and lower sun angle.  Just like it's tough to keep the high temperature in the 30's after mid February here in Portland.

The one bonus this evening is that all models show a pretty rapid cool down beginning Sunday, and by Monday we're probably back down to around 80...Mark Nelsen

It was a perfect evening for a between-show bike ride through the Helvetia area this evening...minus that annoying north wind.  I hate riding into the wind, but the downhill on the way back to the station was nice with the wind.  Visibility is great this evening and temps dropped into the 70s after 7pm.

I have low clouds in the forecast for the areas near the Columbia River in the morning...we'll see if those actually show up.  Then ridging Wednesday will probably keep us cloud free all day.

Now, on to the hot weather.  Looking at the big picture, my thoughts are in the image I used on air that I've put here.  I don't see an excessively hot period (below 100 degrees), but a bunch of days well into the 90s.  Add higher dewpoints, warm nights, and hazy skies from California fire smoke and I think lots of folks will be complaining by Friday-Saturday.  So how did I arrive at a 99 degree high temp Thursday?  1.  Easterly flow into a thermal trough west of the Cascades, but probably not strong enough to bring the wind any farther into the metro area than I-205 at best.  2.  850mb temps of 22-24 by afternoon.  3.  Solid sunshine all day.

All models have a weak upper-level low sliding north along/offshore the coastline anywhere from late Thursday to late Friday.  It's gone by Saturday.  No model is producing any sort of significant moisture or rainfall with this low.  But I find it hard to believe with hot temps and south/southeast flow that we won't get some sort of thunderstorm outbreak.  Something to keep an eye on for sure...Mark Nelsen

It's time to pull out the ol' 1981 heat wave map.  Today is one of the 3 days in Portland's history where we hit the all-time high of 107 degrees.  The 3rd day was in July 1967 (correction...that would be 1965).

I sure don't expect weather THAT hot by this upcoming weekend, but we'll see temps well into the 90s beginning Thursday.  850 mb temps of 21-25 and no onshore flow equals temps in the 95-100 degree range.  In August 2004 we hit 99 degrees in a similar pattern.  We had light offshore flow, 500mb heights around 590, and relatively sharp upper-level ridge.  That's why I kept temps below 100 degrees.  Once we hit mid-August, a lowering sun angle and shorter days means we need to get a stronger east wind episodes to push the temp up above 100 degrees.  I don't see that this time.

I do notice that precipitable water and model forecasts of dewpoint point to a relatively humid (for Oregon) hot spell.  No strong push of cooler/drier ocean air and southerly mid-level flow transporting moisture/smoke Thursday-Sunday will really give us that hot/hazy summer feeling.  More tomorrow...Mark Nelsen