At last, summer is here
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Above: One of the recipes for a great summer day includes the high dive, blue water below and the chance to demonstrate a scissor kick. Left: A good splash in the shallows is just the ticket on a summer day. The Surf ‘n Slide water park did brisk business over the weekend.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Summer is here, and a good splash in the shallows is just the ticket on a summer day. The Surf ‘n Slide water park did brisk business over the weekend.
MOSES LAKE — An overheard remark sums it up perfectly –
“It looks like summer is finally here.”
Ah, summer. No ice, no snow, the sun is out, the grass is green. And remember February, when it was cold and icy and everybody said they wouldn’t complain when it got hot? The ongoing hot flash (temperatures bumping the 100-degree mark Sunday, and high 90s Monday) put that promise to the test.
The thermometer may get stuck in the high 90s again next weekend, said Joe Clevenger, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Spokane. Maybe. “A lot of things can change between now and then,” Clevenger said.
The no good, very bad winter of 2016-17 was the product of periodic ocean currents that affect North American weather. But those phenomena don’t have as much impact on summer weather, Clevenger said.
Really hot weather, the kind that jumps off the sidewalk and hits people in the face, is a product of high pressure high aloft.
High pressure builds up into a ridge, which diverts cooler air coming in from the ocean or drifting down from the north. So far this summer those ridges have stayed away, Clevenger said.
But it’s been a pretty normal summer so far. The average high temperature through June has been about 80 degrees; the average high for June is 79.3 degrees.
Whatever the temperature the Surf ‘n Slide Water Park has been doing a brisk business. Friday the pool was full of excited children, little kids playing in the shallows and older kids jumping off the diving board.
The work week is supposed to be just about perfect summer weather, sunny with highs in the mid-80s to 90 degrees. The region will “get those little troughs of Arctic air.” The rest of the summer – well, it’s a little hard to tell.
The NWS issues a rolling 90-day forecast, which for summer 2017 says – hot and dry. OK, summer in the inland Pacific Northwest is always hot and dry, so how hot and dry? Well, the 90-day forecast says there’s a chance of higher than normal temperatures, and lower than normal precipitation.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.