A strong on-shore flow this morning is actually giving us some drizzle and a few tiny isolated showers west of the Cascades today. Temperatures feeling much more like fall on this last day of summer: expect high temps around 60 on our Pacific Ocean beaches, mid 60s for the I-5 corridor, and temps still in the 80s east of the Cascades. Some pop up t-storms are possible in the Cascades and High Desert in the next 72 hours, so a Fire Weather Watch goes into effect tomorrow for those tinder dry areas through the weekend.

Now is a good time to look back at our summer season here in Portland. It was a pretty good run. A typical summer has about 13 days at or above 90 degrees. For 2012, we had 10 this year. Two of those days were above 100 degrees. The warmest day of this year was August 4^th when we hit 102 degrees. It was also a very dry summer after an incredibly soggy June. We saw nearly no rain in July, August or so far in September at PDX.

Looking forward to the fall season with what is supposed to be an El Nino winter--that typically means warmer than normal and drier than normal. So, we could be in for continued pleasant weather as we get into October and November. This is not the best news for skiiers and snowboarders, however, as El Nino winters typically have less snowpack and shorter ski seasons. Sometimes El Nino winters can mean depleted water tables for next summer’s growing season for farmers.