After a brief cooldown Monday that was expected, we are looking at pleasant weather this week with afternoon temperatures in the 80- to 85-degree range. Can’t ask for anything better than that, can you?
The passing clouds Monday from a weather system mainly focused on areas north of Clark County brought a few sprinkles here and there, but as of 5 p.m. Monday Vancouver officially only recorded a trace. I couldn’t find measurable rain at several other stations around the county.
Farther north and along the coast in Western Washington saw rainfall amounts between a quarter of an inch and nearly 1 inch of rain. Some good wetting rains. But, as I expected, not much making it our way.
As I wrote this column Monday afternoon, the main trough of low pressure was approaching the coastline. It would have been possible to get a few more scattered showers locally that would have been measurable. I’ll let you know in my next column.
Regardless, it was short-lived, and now we return to what I would call typical end of July weather. At least we avoid the hot stuff and no immediate return to highs in the 90s, but I foresee warmer weather when August arrives.
The Clark County Fair is on the horizon now for its big run Aug. 4-13. We’ll keep a sharp weather eye for the weather trends during that period. It usually enjoys pleasant “fair” weather, but as we all know, it can get on the hot side, too. Stay tuned.
This year so far we have had 12 days at 90 degrees or higher. Last year on this date in July, we had 11 days. But then the remaining six days of July 2022 we sweltered in a heat wave and added six more days. There were even a couple days over 100 degrees. Thank goodness not a repeat this year. I’ll take the 80-85 degrees in stride.
I have been keeping weather records and writing about the weather, in one way or another, for more than 50 years. That is a lot of highs and lows, and of course some years stand out better than others. Especially if you can tie it to a good memory. As one gets older the years seem to run together, believe me. So glad for computer databases assisting the human memory cells.
