Off For A Bike Ride

Friday, August 2nd…

I’ll be in NE Oregon and SE Washington from the 3rd-10th of August.  My sister convinced me to participate in the Oregon Bicycle Ride.  It’s a 7 day road cycling tour; very similar to Cycle Oregon.  But someone has decided it’ll happen in the heat of summer.  I’m extremely pleased we don’t have a heat wave coming up this next week in the Pacific Northwest.  The first day looks like this:

I’ve been riding quite a bit to train; we’ll see how it goes.  Looks like about 350 miles of riding in 5 days (2 days off) from Athena to Joseph, then to Lewiston, Dayton, and back to Athena.  That’s a lot of sweat.  I should come back either quite fit or very tired, or possibly both.

No blog postings until the 12th.  But feel free to discuss weather below.

Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen

A Warmer Weekend Ahead

Looks like it’s back the usual programming of a bit above average temps for the next week.  Here’s a peek at the 12z GFS and 12z ECMWF ensemble charts:

 

They both show temps going a bit warmer than the typical +13 to +14 degrees celsius at 4,000′ for this time of the year.  I don’t see a setup for hot weather either…in fact I’d say this summer has been just about perfect.  Remember it can get REALLY hot this time of year,..the 1981 heat wave is one example:

The upper level low currently centered over Eastern Washington fills (weakens) the next few days and then a trough or upper-low (depending on which model you look at) redevelops to our south.   Here’s the 00z GFS showing that scenario for next Thursday morning on the 500mb chart:

Note this can be a perfect pattern for a thunderstorm outbreak over Oregon, even west of the Cascades.  Maybe…I like that SE flow aloft though.  I have a feeling more action, and poor fire weather, is ahead for the Pacific Northwest in the next 7-10 days.

Once again, no model is showing hot weather (90+ in Portland) over the next week, although we may get close Sunday.

Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen