Record Heat Wave Has West Coast Hotter Than Arizona

That which you see above is a screen cap from the front page of this Monday morning's Seattle Times.

June 28, 2021, a date which will likely go down in HOT infamy, due to today's high predicted by some to be as sweltering as 113 for some locations in Western Washington, as this bizarre weather phenomenon sucks super heated air back to the west, over the mountains, from Eastern Washington.

Aunt Alice, in Tonasket, up near the Canadian border, in Eastern Washington, got up to 117 degrees yesterday. Now, it is not at all unusual for Eastern Washington to go over 100 degrees in summer. But, 117 degrees, that is unusual.

Text from the Seattle Times article about today's HOT forecast...

Sunday’s scorching 104-degree milestone, which came at 5:29 p.m., made it the hottest day since at least 1945, when official temperatures started to be measured at Sea-Tac Airport. The previous high of 103 was set in 2009.

And for Seattleites already drenched in sun and sweat, the worst remains to come.

On Monday, forecasters predict a hot wind will sweep down the slopes of the Cascade mountain range and send temperatures soaring even higher, pushing a heat-stressed region further into the unknown.  

In Seattle, “we are looking at 109, 110. 111 is not out of the question,” said Maddie Kristell, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

“The forecast tomorrow is for Seattle to be warmer than Las Vegas,” said Joe Boomgard-Zagrodnik, a postdoctoral researcher in agricultural meteorology at Washington State University. “Unheard of.”

A graphic showing it ain't just Washington that is overheating. 

 I assume the Arizona/Southeast California stats are included because those towns are always hot this time of year, never cooler, like they are today, than the other towns in other states listed.

All the towns listed in Oregon are in central Oregon, well, in the middle of the state, but on the west side of the Cascade range, except for Hermiston, which is in Eastern Oregon, hence hotter than the other towns.

Over the weekend, Seattleites Wally and Wanda were in Astoria, Oregon, located on the Pacific at the mouth of the Columbia River. Wally and Wanda reported being cooled in the 80s, whilst everyone else inland sweltered.

Of the Washington towns listed, all but Seattle are in Eastern Washington, hence HOTTER.

Of the Canadian towns, the only one of the three, the location of which I know without Googling, is Kamloops. Kamloops is in Eastern British Columbia, east of the Cascade Mountains, north of Aunt Alice in Tonasket.

Today is going to be interesting, likely a historic day for the West Coast, hopefully not tragically so...