July Climate Forecast Favors Cooler Weather For Puget Sound

SEATTLE — The weather for Independence Day turned out a little more pleasant than initially anticipated, and forecasters expect the rest of the week will run a bit warmer, too. However, the latest climate predictions slightly favor cooler temperatures winning out this month in Western Washington, and even with a little more sunshine, it looks unlikely that Puget Sound will flirt with the 80s again in the near future.

Warmer with some showers this week, then a sunny weekend

After a sunnier start to Tuesday with some afternoon showers, clouds are due back Wednesday, and another chance for rain arrives Thursday. Fortunately, the forecast shows afternoon highs staying above 70 degrees for most, and sunnier days should return just in time for the weekend.

"The chance of showers will continue Wednesday and Thursday with the upper level trough just off the coast and the air becoming more unstable on Wednesday — so there is a slight chance of thunderstorms across the Cascades Wednesday afternoon and evening," NWS Seattle wrote Tuesday. "Temperatures Wednesday and Thursday will cool a few degrees with highs in the low to mid 70s across the interior and 60s along the coast.

Most of the clouds should clear out by Friday, and more sunshine is in the forecast heading into next week.

Western Washington may run cooler in July than much of the U.S.

Looking ahead to the rest of the month, Western Washington is one of the few places in the United States not currently expected to get some real July heat. The Climate Prediction Center released its monthly outlook Friday, favoring hotter conditions nearly everywhere from about Utah eastward. Only the western portions of Washington and Oregon, along with northwest California, are slightly favored to see temperatures running cooler than usual.

"The outlook for July favors temperatures that are well above average across much of the country, spanning the Mountain West to the East Coast," wrote Tom Di Liberto, a Climate Prediction Center meteorologist. "The highest likelihood of above-average heat (60-70%) is across the Southern Plains in Kansas, Oklahoma, and northern Texas. A large area across the Great Plains and into the Gulf Coast also has greater than 50 percent odds of observing a hotter-than-average July. In contrast, a cooler-than-average month is favored for a slim area along the Pacific Northwest coast."

While it's too early to forecast temperatures with precision, the CPC's seasonal outlooks chart the odds based on several factors and predict how conditions might deviate from normal. Through La Niña conditions are still around, climatologists said it's not the main driving force of the summer conditions.

"Even though La Niña—the cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern—still won’t go away across the Pacific Ocean, its biggest influence during the northern hemisphere summer months is generally on the tropical cyclone season, and not U.S. summer climate.," Di Liberto wrote. "So even though the cool forecast across the Pacific Northwest is consistent with La Niña, the hot outlook for the contiguous United States more relates to a consistent forecast of a ridge of high pressure across the central/eastern U.S. across the multiple models used by forecasters."

On the rain front, most of the Pacific Northwest shows equal odds of running drier or wetter than normal, while the wet phase of the North American Monsoon could soak parts of the Southwest and Southeast.

>> Learn more about the July climate outlook across the U.S. here.