Weather Eye: Maybe showers, but no heat wave in near future

With Saturday’s high temperature of 71 degrees, we have to go back to June 22 to find the last high temperature that was less than 80 degrees. On that date, it was 79 degrees, so we have to go back further to find a high lower than Saturday’s, and that was June 3 with 66 degrees.

The warm stretch of weather we just completed seems like that of later this month and into August. Now our pattern has shifted backward toward May or early June weather with lots of marine clouds, brisk southwest winds and scattered showers or drizzle.

What happened, you say? Well, that is a good question that even has some experts puzzled. You may hear things about the developing strong El Niño and the “Blob.”

You know the Blob — it was responsible for our mild winter and lack of snowpack. Professor Cliff Mass at the University of Washington, I believe, coined the term referring to a batch of warm ocean water in the eastern Pacific, 5 to 7 degrees above average.

El Niño also is a batch of warm Pacific water that creates enough energy to steer the jet stream and weather systems arriving on the West Coast. This pattern provides California with a wet winter with lots of rain and mountain snow. We usually remain drier and warmer than normal with below-average snowpacks in the Cascades. I say usually because there have been some years with an El Niño when we did quite well in the mountains.

The weather system Saturday looked really impressive on the satellite picture. If this was winter we would have expected a good soaking rain and mountain snows.

Little change this week with a chance of showers through Tuesday. We warm up to normal by Thursday, but some computer forecast models indicate another downturn next weekend. No heat waves for a while.

Patrick Timm is a local weather specialist. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at http://patricktimm.com.