What the forecast actually says
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Area Forecast Discussions are the real forecasts, written 3 to 4 times daily by NWS meteorologists reading the models and interpreting what they mean for your area. They offer far deeper insight than any weather app, but they're written in dense meteorological shorthand. Plaincast uses Anthropic's Claude to summarize them into plain English, side by side with the annotated original.
Revised in 4 passages since the 2:48 PM discussion. See every revision.
A mix of wet and dry thunderstorms through Friday will bring lightning, hail, and strong outflow winds.
Breezy, dry conditions around the lee of the Cascades Friday and breezy and dry conditions across the region Saturday.
Dry conditions this weekend, with temperatures remaining warm in the upper 80s and 90s.
Hot and unstable conditions, low humidity, lightning, and gusty winds will maintain critical fire weather conditions across portions of Central and Eastern Washington through at least Thursday. Dry conditions resume this weekend.
This afternoon through Friday: An evolving risk for isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms will be found this period, as a low pressure trough tracks up the Washington coast and eventually into British Columbia by late Friday night. This afternoon that low sits off the WA coast and it is projected to lift toward Vancouver Island by Friday morning. A deformation axis wrapping from Idaho westward toward the Cascades will edge north through that period too, then all these features will start to lift into British Columbia. The moist and unstable southerly flow ahead of and into that feature will be one of the focal points for the precipitation threat. However the general set-up will bring a risk for isolated showers/t-storms just about anywhere in hit-and-miss fashion. Analysis shows around 500-2000 J/kg of storm energy are found around the region, with the highest numbers around the central to southern Panhandle; however, there is a 25-250 J/kg convective cap that may be inhibiting some of the convection from developing. The lift at this point it not all that impressive to overcome that, but as we head into the remainder of the afternoon into tonight activity is expected to expand. For the afternoon and evening Friday the risk for showers/t-storms linger near the Canadian border and around the central Panhandle, with a slot of drier air wrapping into the region reducing that threat of precipitation.
Right now the main activity around the 2 pm hour was showing up from the Palouse to the Idaho Panhandle in isolated fashion. However, the low edging closer and deformation axis lifting north, I am expecting the showers to expand around the Cascades, north and eastern WA and the ID Panhandle through this afternoon and evening. Then heading into the overnight into Friday morning the threat starts to lift the primarily the northern mountain zones. Some of these thunderstorms will have the potential for gusty outflow winds, small hail and lightning. The SPC still has a marginal threat of severe t-storms over the eastern third of WA and ID, so some of these produce strong outflow winds (up to 60 mph) and hail (up to 1 inch). The overall better threat of that is toward the ID/MT border eastward, but this will still be monitored.
The threat of lighting and gusty outflow winds is reason for the Red Flag Warnings that are currently in place. The cells have been moving at a pretty good clip, around 30 to 40 mph and lightning outside of the core of the storms and just given the speed suggest this would be mostly dry lightning. So the risk for fire starts remains. The other fire weather concerns will be found heading into Friday afternoon due to breezy/windy and dry conditions. Per the HREF, the combined probability of humidity <20% and winds >15 mph from the Okanogan Valley to Waterville Plateau is starts to rise after midday and peaks in the late afternoon to early evening. Thus fire weather watches remain in place for some of that area, the Okanogan and Methow Valley for Friday from noon to 9 pm. Relative humidity values bottom out around the mid-teens with winds of 10-20 mph and gusts of 25-30 mph.
Saturday through Wednesday: Ensemble show the low pressure continuing to track over British Columbia and east into Alberta, but a secondary shortwave trough track around the backside of the parent trough and into our region Saturday into Sunday, before a dirty ridge takes over. The drier air over the region means that the shortwave will not have much to work with in terms of precipitation, meaning a dry weekend. However heading toward Tuesday some monsoonal moisture edges toward again some limited shower/t-storm chances will reemerge near the southeastern forecast area and eventually into most of the mountain zones toward Wednesday (into next Thursday). We will see about the lowland risk as we get closer.
Winds will be breezy/gusty on Saturday with the low still tracking by, so speeds of 10-20 mph and gusts of 20-30 mph are in the forecast. With minimum humidity values in the teens and 20s, we will have some elevated fire weather conditions with possible pockets of critical fire weather conditions. High temperatures will hover in the upper 80s to mid 90s through Sunday, warming to mainly the 90s to low 100s next week but the model spread starts to introduce some uncertainty into the forecast as to the precise numbers. /Solveig
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