“Unprecedented” heat wave arrives in the Pacific Northwest… and it’s not even July

The Earth has found anoth­er way to remind us that it has a fever.

This week­end, tem­per­a­tures across the Pacif­ic North­west will ratch­et up into the triple dig­its, bring­ing heat that is sim­ply unprece­dent­ed for this time of year to pret­ty much every cor­ner of the region. The coast and moun­tains will be a bit cool­er, but even they will see tem­per­a­tures that are warmer than usual.

Sat­ur­day’s high in Red­mond is sup­posed to be 103 degrees Fahren­heit, while Sun­day’s high is slat­ed to be 102 °F. On Mon­day, the high is now fore­cast­ed to be an absolute­ly unheard of 108 °F… hot­ter by sev­er­al degrees than any oth­er day I can remem­ber in the Seat­tle-Red­mond area.

East­ern and Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton will see sim­i­lar temperatures.

The Willamette Val­ley will heat up even soon­er. Port­land is set to bake at a tem­per­a­ture of 109 °F by Sun­day, while Eugene is set to reach 107 °F.

Pendle­ton is fore­cast­ed to hit 111 °F on Mon­day. Bend and Sun­riv­er will be a lit­tle bit cool­er, at 100 °F on Sun­day and 102 °F on Monday.

The moun­tains will be cool­er. Par­adise will reach a high of 87° F on Sun­day; Hur­ri­cane Ridge will be 80 °F on Sun­day and 81 °F on Monday.

NOAA’s Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice advises:

… EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL THURSDAY EVENING …

WHAT: Dan­ger­ous­ly hot con­di­tions with tem­per­a­tures of 98 to
104 expected.

WHERE: In Wash­ing­ton, Sim­coe High­lands, North­west Blue
Moun­tains and East Slopes of the Wash­ing­ton Cas­cades. In
Ore­gon, Ochoco-John Day High­lands, North­ern Blue Moun­tains of
Ore­gon, South­ern Blue Moun­tains of Ore­gon, East Slopes of the
Ore­gon Cas­cades and Wal­lowa County.

WHEN: Until Thurs­day evening.

IMPACTS: Extreme heat will sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the
poten­tial for heat relat­ed ill­ness­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those
work­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in out­door activities.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS: There is some pos­si­bil­i­ty that all time
record high tem­per­a­tures will be reached or exceed­ed during
this heat wave.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS:

Drink plen­ty of flu­ids, stay in an air-con­di­tioned room, stay out
of the sun, and check up on rel­a­tives and neighbors.

Young chil­dren and pets should nev­er be left unat­tend­ed in vehi­cles under any circumstances.

Take extra pre­cau­tions if you work or spend time outside.

When pos­si­ble, resched­ule stren­u­ous activ­i­ties to ear­ly morn­ing or evening. Know the signs and symp­toms of heat exhaus­tion and heat stroke. Wear light­weight and loose fit­ting cloth­ing when pos­si­ble. To reduce risk dur­ing out­door work, the Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion rec­om­mends sched­ul­ing fre­quent rest breaks in shad­ed or air con­di­tioned envi­ron­ments. Any­one over­come by heat should be moved to a cool and shad­ed location.

Heat stroke is an emer­gency! Call 911.

Stay­ing hydrat­ed and stay­ing cool is absolute­ly imper­a­tive in hot weath­er. Drink cool water fre­quent­ly, and lim­it out­side activ­i­ties dur­ing the hottest part of the day, like NWS’ advi­so­ry says. If you must be out­side, don’t be in the direct sun for very long. Wear a hat and sun­glass­es, and apply sunblock.

If you don’t have whole home air con­di­tion­ing, you may want to invest in a portable or win­dow mount­ed air con­di­tion­ing sys­tem. Wire­cut­ter has rec­om­men­da­tions here. You may also want to pick up a Vor­na­do fan — unlike most oth­er fans, Vor­nado’s are engi­neered to pro­vide cool­ing breezes through­out entire rooms instead of just the air­space in front of them. Keep blinds and drapes closed, and avoid using appli­ances that gen­er­ate heat, if possible.

King Coun­ty has more tips here.

Be sure to check up on neigh­bors and fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly the elder­ly and those with med­ical con­di­tions that make them more vul­ner­a­ble to heat stroke, to see that they’re doing okay. Cool­ing cen­ters will be avail­able for those who need them. If some­one’s home is too hot to safe­ly occu­py, they should be moved!

Final­ly, a few words about fire from Com­mis­sion­er Hilary Franz:

“Wash­ing­ton is expe­ri­enc­ing a his­toric drought that is increas­ing fire dan­ger across our state. We are imple­ment­ing burn restric­tions, but we can’t ful­ly pro­tect our forests or our com­mu­ni­ties with­out the public’s help.”

Fuels are in dri­er con­di­tions this year than what is typ­i­cal of July or August due to a lack of pre­cip­i­ta­tion across the state, and with mod­els pro­ject­ing 110-degree tem­per­a­tures or more in some parts of the state this com­ing week­end, the sit­u­a­tion is ripe for severe fire danger.

“Hot­ter and dri­er weath­er con­di­tions leave us more vul­ner­a­ble to fast-spread­ing fires,” Franz said. “I’m urg­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans this week­end to avoid activ­i­ties that could acci­den­tal­ly spark a wild­fire, espe­cial­ly out­door fires. It could prove disastrous.”

Some tips to stay safe dur­ing this fire sea­son include:

• Make sure your dirt bikes or ATV’s have oper­at­ing spark arrestors
• If you’re in an area where camp­fires are per­mit­ted, make sure you’ve doused, stirred and doused your fire again until it is cool to the touch before head­ing home.
• Peo­ple should use this time at home to pre­pare for wild­fire by cre­at­ing defen­si­ble space.
• Reduce dry fuels around your home
• Clean roof tops and gutters
• Limb up your trees and remove dead branches
• Pay atten­tion to burn ban restric­tions and keep an eye on your burn pile.

Restric­tions tak­ing effect on Fri­day, June 25 in the fol­low­ing areas:

• Rule burn­ing (small debris dis­pos­al fires) is NOT allowed in the fol­low­ing FDRA: High­lands and Methow.
• Camp­fires are NOT allowed except in approved des­ig­nat­ed camp­grounds in the fol­low­ing FDRA: High­lands and Methow.

Fire Dan­ger Rat­ing Areas (FDRA) changes:

• Fire dan­ger increas­es from mod­er­ate to high in the fol­low­ing FDRA: Chelan, Foothills, High­lands and Low­er Yakima.
• Fire dan­ger increas­es from high to very high in the fol­low­ing FDRA: Low­er Basin.

The safest thing to do is just not start any fires, peri­od, not even camp­fires in camp­ground fire pits. With tem­per­a­tures in the one hun­dreds, there will be no need to get cozy by a camp­fire dur­ing the next few days.

By look­ing out for each oth­er, we can get through this heat wave.

This is sad­ly a but taste of what we can expect in the years to come due to our fail­ure to address cli­mate dam­age over the past few decades.

Stay safe and stay cool!