Summer officially begins Tuesday, and it’ll finally start to look like summer in Oregon this week.
Just in time, the National Weather Service is forecasting sunny skies and temperatures right around 80 degrees through much of the state Tuesday through Saturday.
The cool water in the Ira Keller Fountain Park in downtown Portland shown in this June 28, 2021, file photo may be calling this week as temperatures are expected to reach into the 80s and possibly the 90s.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
By Sunday, Portland and Pendleton could see the first 90-degree day of the year.
Bend and Eugene should be in the high 80s by Sunday. And along the coast, the sunny skies will lead to highs in the mid-70s for the weekend.
In Klamath Falls, where people awoke to a freeze warning Monday, the temperature could hit the low-90s by Saturday. And Medford will near 100 degrees this weekend.
The sunshine comes after a particularly damp, cool spring. In early April, a blanket of snow covered parts of Oregon and Southwest Washington, leading to power outages, school closures and traffic accidents. It was the first time in 82 years of record-keeping that measurable snow had fallen at Portland International Airport that late in the year.
That snowfall came during a soggy April that was the wettest it had been since 1940. Then, a week ago, a so-called atmospheric river dumped rain across much of the region, pushing some rivers to flood stage or close to it. The clouds and rain that lingered from April and May had led some to dub this month’s malaise the “June gloom.”
Even as the daytime heat rises this week, overnight temperatures will continue to provide some relief as they stay in the 50s and low 60s.