Weather reports on whatever I decide to report on.
Rain showers diminish Tuesday afternoon and evening, though a few isolated showers are possible during the day Wednesday. After that, skies are forecast to clear over the Columbia Basin allowing for temperatures to get below freezing in most lowland areas. This has prompted the National Weather Service to issue a freeze warning for everywhere in […]
Spring of 2022 was notoriously wet across the Pacific Northwest, but an abrupt pattern change in June left the region unusually dry through the rest of the summer and into the first half of fall. Some rain did fall during this time in the Tri-Cities, but from June 13 to October 20, only 0.39 inches […]
A building ridge of high pressure this week is forecast to bring a late-season heatwave to the Pacific Northwest. This has prompted the National Weather Service in Pendleton to issue a heat advisory from 11:00 to 20:00 Wednesday for the Lower Columbia Basin and Yakima Valley. This includes the Tri-Cities, Yakima, and Hermiston, but excludes […]
It won’t be as extreme as the 2021 Heat Dome, which brought new all-time records to many locations in the Pacific Northwest, but much of next week is likely to see highs above 100° in the Tri-Cities. An upper level ridge of high pressure is forecast to move into the Pacific Northwest from offshore starting […]
UPDATE (06:45 Friday) – The fire weather watch is now a Red Flag Warning in effect from 12:00 to 20:00 Friday. All other forecast information is still valid – see Thursday’s article below: Dry, warm, and breezy conditions have prompted the National Weather Service office in Pendleton to issue a Fire Weather Watch for the […]
Rain showers were observed in the Columbia Basin early Tuesday as a disturbance passed through the Pacific Northwest. Most of the lowland precipitation has ended, though some showers remain possible into the daytime hours with the highest chance of these being along the Blue Mountains and northeast toward Ritzville. A few rumbles of thunder are […]
An active weather pattern is expected to continue into the weekend. The Inland Northwest isn’t likely to see much in the way of precipitation as a ridge of high pressure off the Pacific Northwest puses weather systems up into Alaska and down the east side of the Rocky Mountains, dropping most of their moisture before […]
The drought gripping the Western United States continues to worsen in Eastern Washington. In this week’s update of the U.S. Drought Monitor, exceptional drought (level 4/4) was noted as stretching from the northern end of Rattlesnake Mountain to Sprague Lake, which lies between Ritzville and Spokane. A small sliver of exceptional drought conditions also reaches […]
The National Drought Mitigation Center updates their Drought Monitor every Thursday, outlining the geographic details of drought conditions throughout North America. In today’s update, the extreme drought category was expanded to include much of Eastern Washington from the Tri-Cities northeast toward the Spokane area. Previously, only small sections near Prosser and Waitsburg were seeing extreme […]
Early Monday morning, the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for the Columbia Basin. That advisory will still start at 11:00 Tuesday but now extends to 20:00 Thursday. It includes the Tri-Cities, Yakima, Walla Walla, Hermiston, and surrounding areas. FORECAST This heatwave comes just in time for the start of meteorological summer, which begins […]