Cooler weather giving way to hot Memorial Day forecast
May 20—The Memorial Day weekend in the Spokane area should be, as far as weather is concerned, one to remember.
While an odd pattern may thrust much of the nation into cooler-than-average temperatures, warmer weather should arrive by the end of this week and move into the 80sfor Monday, said Jeremy Wolf, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
"We are going to stay in this cooler, showery pattern through Thursday," Wolf said. "But that weather system moves out as we go into Friday and a larger system sets up off the coast and bumps up a high-pressure ridge over us.
"That allows temperatures to warm up over the Memorial Day weekend."
The normal high for this time of year in Spokane, as measured at Spokane International Airport, is 69 degrees.
That means the highs through this week, which will be about 60 on Thursday before moving to the upper 60s on Friday, will remain cooler than normal.
But the high will reach the upper 70s by Sunday and the low 80s for Monday, Wolf said.
Burst of cool
Internationally, a heat dome over the North Atlantic drove temperatures up to nearly 80 degrees in eastern Iceland last week.
But this unusual pattern of warmth near the Arctic Circle is driving the cool spell for the United States, as chilly air is displaced much farther south this week. That air will spill over the central and eastern United States and help spawn potent storms and severe weather.
On Monday, several areas across the central states reported storm damage following several days of deadly conditions.
In the days ahead, areas from Minneapolis to Boston will be soaked, with a risk for flooding and severe storms in several states, including Missouri and Kentucky, where deadly tornadoes recently occurred, according to the Washington Post.
The lows will also briefly make it feel more like March than May from Montana to Maine. Daytime temperatures may struggle to reach 50 degrees in the Northeast on Thursday, near record lows for the time of year.
When the storm reaches the Eastern Seaboard on Thursday, it will probably become a nor'easter, a type of coastal storm more typical in winter, bringing wind-driven heavy rain.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the stormy weather will focus over the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with heavy rain for areas in the Appalachians flooded by last week's deadly atmospheric river.
Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches are possible, with some of the heaviest totals forecast in western Pennsylvania and the panhandles of West Virginia and Maryland.
On Thursday, a coastal storm called a nor'easter will form, bringing heavy, windswept rain and travel delays from New York to Boston.
As a result, the daytime temperatures won't get much past 50 degrees in the Northeast because of a forming nor'easter, potentially breaking a few records.
Local outlook
After Monday, a little more weather uncertainty returns to the Inland Northwest.
"It does look like we may cool down into Tuesday. Whether that's a few degrees or several degrees remains undetermined," Wolf said.
"We are heading to a drier pattern," Wolf said. "We are looking for showers on Thursday. But the rainfall amounts will be on the lighter side. Other than that, we are expecting little to no precipitation through Memorial Day weekend."
That forecast is for lower areas.
"If you go up into the Mountains, there is a 20 to 30% chance of showers," he said.
"But for the most part, it's looking like a pretty dry pattern."
For May, which has been marked by several small rain events, the Spokane area has received about .87 inches of rain, which is just shy of the normal rainfall of .88 inches for the month.
Following a dry April, the region has received 6.68 inches of rain since the start of the year. That's about three-quarters of an inch below the normal rainfall of 7.37 for this time of year, Wolf said.
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
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People unfamiliar with the area will try to round the Cape and just get beat up. They have to pull into Humboldt Bay and wait until the winds let up enough to safely pass.' In winter, the pattern shifts. Instead of pressure-driven north winds, powerful low-pressure systems sweep in from the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, triggering brief but intense southerly gusts. These storms can deliver serious wind impacts, but they are shorter-lived and less consistent than the prolonged blows of spring and early summer. The Chronicle's analysis relied on hourly wind gust data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, known as reanalysis data, which blends direct observations with weather modeling. We calculated the strongest gust recorded each day and averaged those over 30 years, from 1991 to 2024, to provide a comprehensive picture of wind behavior statewide, pinpointing the Cape Mendocino area as the consistently windiest place in California. 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