By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Pioneer
Thursday, May 11, 2023
The long forecasted high pressure ridge is building in and will really start making its presence known tomorrow with the warmest days of the season coming this Mother’s Day Weekend. So, tonight we will see some partly cloudy skies and calm winds, the low near 47.
Tomorrow the ridge will build even more but fortunately for us, we will keep some of the marine influence with the northwesterly winds 5-10 so the high will be a comfortable 69 degrees under some mostly sunny skies. With the stronger ridge we see mostly clear skies tomorrow night with the winds becoming more northeasterly 4-8 after midnight, the lows near 53.
Then on Saturday things really start to heat up with the flow pushing the marine air offshore. This brings sunny skies with northeasterly winds 5-10, the high climbing up to near 83 that afternoon. This, and the expected low 90s over in the valley, has prompted the National Weather Service to issue an Excessive Heat Watch for the entire area, valid from 2PM Saturday through 8PM Monday. With northeasterly winds becoming more easterly and increasing to 8-12 gusting to 18, lows Saturday night only drop to near 63.
On Sunday, the very dry winds increase to easterly 15-20 gusting to 25-30, the high under the sunny skies peak out at 84, the relative humidity likely drops to around 30%, real dry. Still on the breezy side, and still easterly, Sunday night, the lows again only dropping to near 62.
The good news, with the high winds and low relative humidity over the weekend, is that the local vegetation is still green and hasn’t had the opportunity to dry out, which would have contributed to a higher fire concern. I would still say the fire danger is somewhat elevated, so extra care is recommended.
Monday things get a little harder to forecast as it looks like there will be a weakening low pressure over central Oregon as well as a large low off spinning off to the southwest. These will be weakening the ridge and influencing the winds, swinging them to become more southwesterly which will cool things down some, so the high temperature Monday only makes it to around 75 before the marine layer starts pushing the temperatures down. We see a few clouds Monday night, the low back down to near 54.
It looks like there will be not much change for Tuesday and Wednesday so we can expect mostly sunny skies still with highs near 72, lows under partly sunny skies near 52.