Heat wave predicted to hit Bellingham, but there’s no smoke on the horizon — for now

Temperatures could top 90 degrees in Bellingham for the first time this summer as high pressure builds over Western Washington.

Several days of sunny skies and above-normal temperatures are in store next week as a high-pressure ridge parks itself over Washington, Samantha Borth with the National Weather Service in Seattle said Thursday.

“It’s possible that you might approach 90. (But) we’re not expecting anything like we saw in 2021,” Borth told The Bellingham Herald.

One person died in 2021 as a pair of “heat domes” baked Whatcom County with its warmest temperatures since records were kept in 1949.

In that summer, the mercury hit 99 on June 28 and 100 on Aug. 12 and a Bellingham woman died of heat-related complications, the medical examiner said.

Next week’s temperatures will be 10 to 15 degrees above the normal mid-August average of 75, Borth said.

Evenings will be warm, too, with forecast lows in the low 60s.

Bellingham’s warmest days are expected to be Tuesday through Thursday.

One piece of good new with the forecast, however, is that winds are expected to remain westerly — and that will continue to keep wildfire smoke away.

High pressure over Western Washington often shifts wind direction, and Borth said meteorologists are watching that closely.

“There’s a chance that the wind may turn easterly at some point,” she said.

June and July were slightly warmer than normal in Bellingham and the rest of Whatcom County. But so far this summer, Northwest Washington has been spared the searing heat that’s been baking the Southwest and other parts of the country.