More than 12 million people are under a heat advisory in the Pacific Northwest, as temperatures through the weekend are expected to climb nearly 20 degrees higher than normal, with the extreme weather extending into Canada as the country contends with dozens of wildfires.
National Weather Service forecasters said an abnormal area of high pressure will build a “heat dome” over the western United States and Canada, acting like a lid over the atmosphere, bringing clear skies and allowing temperatures to rise.
“Temperatures in the Pacific Northwest will experience highs in the 80s and 90s, which will represent 20-30+ degree anomalies,” forecasters with the Weather Prediction Center said Saturday. “Many parts of the coastal Pacific Northwest will tie or break temperature records this weekend.”
The Seattle region is forecast to reach a high of 87 degrees Saturday and Sunday. If the temperature reaches 90 degrees, it will break a May 17, 2008, record for the earliest 90-degree day of the year.
Temperatures in the region are expected to be in the low to mid-80s throughout next week, forecasters said.
Several cooling centers opened throughout the Seattle area this weekend in preparation for the heat wave, according to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
While Portland, Oregon, has yet to open official cooling centers, local officials urged people to seek respite from the heat in local libraries, community pools or fountains. More than 43,000 bottles of water and 4,400 packets of sunscreen were also distributed to people without shelter over the past week, Portland officials said.
The hot weather will also stretch into Canada, where Alberta is fighting around 75 wildfires, 23 of which are labeled out of control, said Copernicus, an earth observation component of the European Union’s space program, on Twitter on Thursday.
Alberta has declared a provincial state of emergency and has asked more than 29,000 people to evacuate their homes.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said in a news release this past week that temperatures last month in Northern Canada were higher than average.
A 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada was exceptional, breaking previous temperature records by large margins. Worldwide since 1960, only five other heat waves have been that extreme.