By Gordon McCraw, Tillamook County Emergency Manager
Tuesday, June 29, 2021, 10:30am
Weather
The record breaking 2021 heat wave is headed into the rearview mirror. There are still Excessive Heat Warnings over towards Hood River south through Bend, but they have been dropped west of the Cascades all the way to the coast. There were many long standing daily high temperatures records broken and several all-time high temperatures broken including some that were the highest temperature since local weather records began. It looks like the 117 degree high set in Salem yesterday is the new highest recorded temperature west of the Cascades, in the Pacific Northwest. Along the coast, Tillamook Airport hit 100 Sunday. Because Tillamook is not an “official” NOAA reporting weather station it is unknown if this is a record. Astoria is an official site, and their 101 Sunday tied their all-time high set in 1887. Other records were set from Vancouver thru Hood River south thru Salem to Eugene both Saturday, then were beat again on Sunday, and even again on Monday. We can’t guarantee that we won’t see hot temperatures returning this summer but the odds favor that we will not see anything like this for some time to come.
The high pressure center responsible for the hot weather has pushed northeastward towards the northeast Washington, northern Idaho, southern Canada region which had allowed the cooler onshore flow to push past the coast and spill into the valley. High temperatures today under mostly sunny skies up around 70 with the afternoon winds westerly 5-10. The marine clouds push in tonight with light winds, the low near 59. Highs over in the valley have “cooled” so the highs there only in the low 90s.
Not as much clearing tomorrow so the temperatures only up around 69, the clouds return tomorrow night, lows near 56. Thursday looks pretty similar to Wednesday then Friday on thru the 4th of July, mostly sunny days with highs near 70, partly cloudy nights, lows near 55. We do start to see the marine clouds returning Sunday night, but they burn off again on Monday, the high still near 70. By the way, high temperatures over in the valley remain in the low 90s.
Vaccine, Take-Your-Shot, Campaign Questions
As you may remember, every Oregonian who had at least one vaccine shot by June 27th became eligible for a $1,000,000 prize from the State and a $10,000 in the County. There were also five $100,000 Oregon College Savings Plan scholarships to be won by individuals 12-17 years old. Now we pace the floor to see who won.
I was asked yesterday about how the winner would be notified. I did not know but as luck would have it, today came the answer and here it is directly from the Press Release:
More than 2.3 million vaccinated Oregonians must now wait for a call to see if they are a winner. The lucky winners will be notified by phone within the next week.
Here are a few tips to know the call is legitimate:
- The call will come from Oregon Health Authority.
- The call will come from a 503 or 971 area code.
- The caller will ask about your vaccination status.
- The caller will NOT ask about financial information. A caller who asks for any financial information is fraudulent and a scam. Hang up immediately.
Because of the high number of prizes (again, 134 total statewide), it will take some time to make the calls and verify winners. Governor Kate Brown anticipates announcing the winners sometime next week.