Saturday made a great comeback from the clouds and rain we experienced Thursday and Friday. Clear skies after the morning fog and low clouds burned off and highs at 80 degrees or better. Even the ocean beaches were in the low 70s!
The forecast is really summer-like, so get ready and enjoy a week of summer weather. I know if you are in the classroom it is tough, but after school? Highs Tuesday and Wednesday are forecast at 90 degrees or higher, so it will be hot. This time around with the longer hours of darkness and a lack of a humid air mass, overnight lows should be in the comfortable 50s.
Did you enjoy the rain Thursday and early Friday? The rain arrived a little later than I thought on Thursday, but amounts were quite heavy with numerous rainfall records set including Vancouver and Portland. Most areas in the city had 1 inch or more, and the foothills had upward of 2 inches. Many rainfall amounts in western Washington were in the 2-to-4-inch range mainly around the Puget Sound area and in the Cascades.
For the two-day total from Wednesday night through Friday there were over 200,000 lightning strikes in the Pacific Northwest. Very impressive. The bummer is Clark County escaped most of the thunderstorm activity but just up the freeway a few miles in Cowlitz County, residents there had quite a light show.
