Ending July hot and starting August even hotter

Today will be hotter than yesterday, with highs hitting the triple digits in some areas. Another ridge of high pressure has centered itself over the West and is expected to stay for an extended period of time. We won’t be seeing this heat for three weeks, like we saw at the beginning of July, but we will see temperatures over 90 for a while. Prepare and protect yourself from the heat, there will be little relief at night for the next few days, as lows will only drop into the 60s. Take frequent breaks, drink plenty of water.

Air quality is moderate this morning but is expected to worsen today with winds blowing in smoke from the southwest and the southeast for the first half of the day.

Fire danger increases as we head into the weekend. We are hot and dry. There is a chance for dry thunderstorms to our south on Saturday and an even smaller chance on Friday. Gusty winds and possible lightning that accompanies this weather will increase potential for dangerous wildfire behavior.

We’ll see cloudier skies over our region this weekend.

This last July was one for the record books, as far as heat goes. The average high temperature for July was 92.9°. This beats the previous record set in 1906 of 91.2° and well surpasses the average high temp of 83.8° for the month. We saw 5 days in Bend over 100°, which is two more days from our last record set in 2022.

Fire season this summer has been notable as well, with a couple more months still left to go. The Durkee Fire is currently the fifth largest wildfire ever burned in Oregon, currently over 293,000 acres. The largest wildfire was the Long Draw Fire in 2012, which burned over 557,000 acres.

Chief Meteorologist John Carroll and I will discuss all broken records today live on NewsChannel 21. Happy Thursday!


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