Whew! Olympia sets high temperature record on Tuesday, with more heat to come

Olympia was officially hot on Tuesday.

The high temperature reached 97 degrees, setting a new record for July 26. The previous record of 96 degrees was set in 1998.

Based on the National Weather Service forecast — and a heat wave in 2009 — it looks unlikely that other records will fall this week. The record for July 27 is 99 degrees, while a revised forecast expected Olympia to hit 89 on Wednesday. The records for July 28 and 29 were set in 2009, when temperatures reached 101 and 104 degrees, respectively. The forecast is for 95 and 97 degrees.

Olympia wasn’t the only record setter on Tuesday. Record-high temperatures were broken in Seattle and Bellingham as well. Seattle hit 94 degrees at 5 p.m. Tuesday, breaking its 2018 record of 92. Bellingham reached 90 degrees at 5 p.m., breaking its record of 86 set in 1988.

The heat wave initially was expected to peak at mid week, but now forecasters believe the highest temperatures could arrive Friday or Saturday, when highs are now expected to reach 97 or 98 degrees.

“You are not imagining that,” Carly Kovacik of the National Weather Service told the Seattle Times on Wednesday. “It keeps getting prolonged by one extra day. Saturday now looks quite a bit warmer than the previous forecast.”

The weather service is expected to extend the excessive heat warning for the region through Saturday, she said. It had been set to expire Friday.

What’s happening is that an area of low pressure offshore is arriving more slowly than expected, Kovacik said.

“The good news, though, is that definitely by Sunday we will be looking at a change,” she told The Times. Sunday’s predicted high in Olympia is still 85.

By next week, there will be a more noticeable change, with high temperatures back into the upper 70s and some clouds returning.

This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 8:31 PM.