Spokane has broken its all-time record high temperature. At 4 pm the National Weather Service reported the temperature at its Spokane International Airport facility had reached 109. The weather service’s other thermometer at Felts Field registered 111 at 6 pm.
“There’s lot of other observations around town, whether it be a DOT [Washington Department of Transportation] sensor or a citizen weather observing station, but those aren’t official records. We’ll use them. We’ll look at them. We’ll look at the observations. We’ll look at their temperatures or their winds or things like that. But they aren’t official," said NWS meteorologist Laurie Nisbet.
Several other Inland Northwest cities also set records, either all-time or just for June 29. Omak topped the list at 117, an all-time high for the north central Washington city. Others setting historic records included Ephrata (116), Lewiston (115) and Wenatchee (114). Cities setting records for June 29: Hermiston (118), Pendleton (117), Walla Walla (116), Pasco and Yakima (113), Pullman (106), Missoula and Kalispell (101).
The weather service has been preparing Spokane resident for several days for the possibility of an record high. Now that the time is here, “I think we’re excited about it. I’m not excited that this is the kind of record we’re breaking. This isn’t a fun record to break, necessarily, because I know there are so many people who do not have air conditioning and this is just miserable for them," Nisbet said.
Forecasters have predicted winds might pick up as mid-week approaches and they have a bit. But she says, so far, worries about wildfires and a lot of smoke in the air haven’t yet materialized.
Spokane did break another weather-related record Tuesday, for the record warm overnight temperature. The minimum temperature of 77 matches a record set in 1928.
