First 80-Degree Mother’s Day in a Decade?

Break out the sunscreen and fire up the barbecues, Seattle—a spectacular weekend is on tap.

After a couple of days of cooler temperatures (to wit, we missed tying the all-time record low for today by one degree), warmer weather is headed back to Western Washington, starting tomorrow. After a cool start to the day—overnight lows will bottom out around 40 degrees—we’ll make a quick recovery, zooming into the 60s by the lunch hour. High temperatures for the day will likely fall just shy of the 70-degree mark—making Friday the last day we’ll be under 70 degrees until next Wednesday.

Space Needle in Sun
A sunny weekend is in store for Seattle, with temperatures warming to around 80 degrees by Sunday.

Saturday and Sunday will feature sunny skies and progressively warmer temperatures—75 for a high on Saturday, and right around 80 degrees on Sunday.  All you moms out there, take note—should Seattle hit 80 degrees on Sunday, it would mark the first 80-degree Mother’s Day we’ve seen in ten years (we also hit 80 on May 12, 2002). Talk about the ultimate Mother’s Day present.

If we don’t make it to 80 on Sunday (because sunshine and 79 degrees is such a letdown, right?), we’ll do so Monday, as the upper level ridge of high pressure responsible for all the warmth moves directly over us.  The ridge will begin moving to the east Tuesday, knocking our temperatures down several degrees, although we’ll still top out in the low 70s under mostly sunny skies.

It’s not until Wednesday when the sunshine finally gives way to the familiar clouds and cool marine air, with highs falling back to our mid-May norm of 64 degrees. By then, we’ll have seen several days of above normal temperatures, so who could complain?

Certainly not the mothers.