1st Day Of Summer Previews Weekend Heat: Puget Sound Forecast

SEATTLE — The first day of summer looks to be the warmest in a while, but the weekend promises to bring Puget Sound some real heat for the first time in 2022, according to the National Weather Service.

While Tuesday will be nice around Western Washington, especially compared to the spring before it, forecasters are already looking ahead to what could be a multi-day stretch of temperatures in the 80s. As of Monday, Seattle had yet to reach even 75 degrees, which typically occurs by May. Should the Emerald City break into the 80s by Saturday, it will be the warmest day recorded since last September.

That warming trend should stick around into at least Monday, logging at least three days in the mid-to-low 80s for the Seattle area — and even hotter in the South Sound — with Sunday serving as the warmest.

(NWS Seattle)

“The long term forecast period is actually the period of primary focus right now,” wrote Carly Kovacik, lead forecaster at NWS Seattle, on Monday. “Although nothing in comparison to the heat wave experienced around this time last year, it is beneficial to begin planning for a stretch of much warmer weather later this week/weekend.”

The local forecast is in line with the Climate Prediction Center’s latest outlooks, which favor hotter than usual temperatures for the Pacific Northwest and much of the contiguous United States between June 25 and 29.

(NOAA/Climate Prediction Center)

The well-timed summer heat-up arrives after one of the coldest and wettest spring seasons on record for Western Washington. According to the National Weather Service, Seattle recorded its fourth-coldest March 21 – June 20 period in 50 years, and its eighth-wettest since records began at Sea-Tac in 1945.

Here is the five-day weather outlook for the Seattle area:

Source: Bellevue Patch