Weather Eye: Wildfire smoke and heat to give way by Friday

Local officials have issued an Air Quality Advisory for smoke and ozone. It says, “Wildfires burning in the region combined with forecasted conditions will cause air quality to reach unhealthy levels due to smoke and ozone at times through 8 p.m. this evening.”

You’ve heard of Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” well I will call today’s weather a “late summer nightmare (daytime version).” Nothing worse than wildfire, smoke and haze, especially when it reaches the ground and causes unhealthy breathing outside. Easterly winds will bring all that smoke that covers areas east of the Cascades to us. This combined with exceptionally warm air aloft keeps a tight lid over us and little wind or atmospheric activity to clear the smoke away.

Good news, however, more ocean air will seep inland on Friday and change the wind patterns, so the smoke will retreat to where it came from. In addition, cooler temperatures will arrive and continue to cool over the weekend. The weekend will see highs in the 80s.

Today it will be around 95 degrees unless the smoke is so thick it blocks sunshine from heating us up. On Friday as the air clears, we see highs about 90 degrees. Looking to next week I think we keep the heat at bay and enjoy seasonal to slightly below average temperatures. Highs between 77 and 83 are on tap next week.

I mentioned here earlier this week an elongated trough of low pressure will rest off the Washington Coast and swing showers through British Columbia and Northern Washington. Some drizzle along our coast and over the mountains but at this writing I don’t see any measurable rain for us. We’ll see how the weather pattern goes next week and see if it develops into a greater chance of showers.

Several readers commented on my column Tuesday when I mentioned summer is waning at a quick pace and autumn is around the corner. Our faithful weather observer Ellen Smart, who lives near the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge, wrote she heard geese honking as they flew into the refuge on July 27. And also, a flock of robins, too. She added, “That’s the beginning of the end of summer, isn’t it?”

Nature does indeed give us an insight into the seasonal changes. I bet with the warm and dry weather this summer that some trees begin to show early fall colors due to heat stress. It seems almost like a yearly occurrence now.