BELLINGHAM - The temperature in Bellingham hasn't risen above 80 degrees yet this summer, and it's unlikely that barrier will be broken this weekend.
Forecasts predict a Sunday high of about 75 degrees - warm weather, to be sure, but not sweltering like the East Coast has been for the past week. Excessive heat warnings were in effect Friday, July 22, in about 20 states east of the Mississippi River, according to the National Weather Service.
A record-breaking heat wave sent temperatures soaring to 100 degrees in New York City.
Washington state's weather has been mild, even cool, by comparison.
KOMO News forecaster Scott Sistek first reported that Seattle has had exactly "78 minutes of summer" this year. That's the total amount of time thermometers have jumped above 80 degrees.
The report sparked its share of envy and commiseration from Twitter users on the other side of the nation.
By Sistek's standard, Bellingham's summer has been completely absent. So far, the city has topped out at 78 degrees on July 3.
For people in other parts of Whatcom County, summer, or at least a hint of it, might seem to be arriving: The National Weather Service forecasts Everson will peak at 79 degrees this weekend, and temperatures at Ross Lake are expected to hit 82 degrees.
But it's not expected to last, as highs of about 70 are expected early next week.
Cliff Mass, University of Washington professor of atmospheric sciences, says the unusual cloud coverage over Western Washington is coming from a trough that has been consistently sitting over the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The result, he says, has been the inverse of July's usual pattern. Instead of wet and cool at the beginning of the month, those days came in the middle. The last week of July and the beginning of August are historically the driest weeks of the year.
He adds the forecast calls for a dry and warm weekend, then back to clouds.
But there are signs the trough is weakening.
Jay Neher, meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said, "July (in Seattle) has only been one degree below average."
"It all depends what you think is cool," he said. "If you consider 80 cool, then it has been cool. I did notice that we had only three days below 70 in July. That doesn't sound too bad for me."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
