Weather Eye: Get ready for grilling: Father’s Day should be warm, sunny

Good news! The weekend weather for Father’s Day looks outstanding so get ready to fire up the old barbecue for Sunday’s dinner. We are expecting mostly sunny skies and highs at or close to 80 both days this weekend.

Another round of clouds and maybe some drizzle today and then high pressure builds off the coast, shunting weather systems far to the north and presenting us with an extended warm-and-dry period.

Next week we will be close to the rain belt but at this point I think we will remain high and dry with warm temperatures. The only down side (always is it seems) is that it will be rather humid with a southwest flow of air.

We are still running about 3.5 degrees below normal on the average mean temperature but this time next week we should erase that negative figure. Rainfall is still over an inch and we will make a dent in that as well.

The past week or so we have actually been adding snowpack in the higher Cascades but now we will turn around and start to melt that off as the spring runoff continues in full swing with rising freezing levels over the next week.

Next thing we will be seeing is fresh raspberries in the stores and those luscious cherries from orchards to our east. We may have to put up with lots of clouds in June but the fresh fruit helps make up for that.

Enjoy the remainder of the week and we will chat on Father’s Day.

Patrick Timm is a local weather specialist. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at Weather Systems.