Weather Eye: Summer solstice gets season off to official start; heat wave soon

Welcome to the official start of summer as of 9:38 a.m. today, which really kicks off the season.

Looking at the brown grass just about everywhere, I would think we are in midsummer rather than the beginning. Things are dry, maybe a good month earlier than usual. I remember some Fourth of July weather when the grasses still had a greenish tint.

With no rain in sight and lots of sunshine, June could go into the record books as the warmest on record in many places, including locally. This will be helped by strong high pressure and hot air moving up from the desert southwest beginning late in the week.

We’ll go for 90 degrees Friday, maybe 95 to 100 degrees or better next weekend and early the following week. It could last awhile. Of course, it is a ways out, but all the forecast models have been consistent about this, so it should be a well-advertised heat wave.

We have been gaining minutes of daylight each day for a while, but now that the summer solstice has arrived, we will start losing it once again until the start of winter.

Weather observer Tyler Mode of Battle Ground posted this: Saturday’s sunrise was at 5:21 a.m., which is the earliest it ever gets. We gained one second of daylight today. Up in Fairbanks, their sunrise Saturday was at 2:58 a.m., sunset at 12:47 a.m. Barrow had the sun all day and night (you know what I mean), and the sun will not set there until Aug. 2.

I have seen pictures of wildfires in Alaska, but I have never been able to get the grip on forest fires in Alaska. I guess my mind pictures the far north as cold and wet much like folks on the East Coast picture the Pacific Northwest.

Enjoy the mild weather now and prepare for the hot stuff .

Patrick Timm is a local weather specialist. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at http://patricktimm.com.

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