Unofficial final weekend of summer will be fairly tranquil

We head into the long holiday weekend without too many weather concerns. Good news for travelers and revelers.

Weather watch

Northwest heat. Unusually high temperatures persist in the Pacific Northwest and adjacent Canada. While there’s a bit of a lull in record high potential at the moment, heat will flex again late weekend into next week. By Monday and Tuesday, highs near 100 will be common in places like eastern Washington State.

Lightning links

Labor Day is almost here. Where are the hurricanes? (Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather)

Why are there so many leaves falling? Is this an early autumn? (Jesse Ferrell, AccuWeather)

Fall Foliage 2025: When The Colorful Display Peaks In The United States. (Miriam Guthrie, The Weather Channel)

Katrina 20

It’s been 20 years since Katrina made landfall on the northern Gulf Coast. Reaching Category 5 — 902 millibar peak is still the 8th lowest pressure on record in the Atlantic — the day before landfall, Katrina’s impacts were baked in as it came ashore as a Category 3.

Given its prior power and continued immense size at landfall, the storm surge was akin to the biggest beasts we’ve seen hit land. Waters rose past 25 feet, particularly along Mississippi beaches and caused dozens of levee breaks in and around New Orleans, leaving behind widespread destruction and a death toll that was hard to fathom.

Here are some interesting links:

• 'All Heck Broke Loose': An Oral History Of Katrina's Approach And Landfall (Jenn Jordan, The Weather Channel)

• Katrina landfall radar (NWS Lake Charles)

• Katrina tropical cyclone report PDF. (National Hurricane Center)

• Hurricane Katrina Floods the Southeastern United States. (NASA Earth Observatory)

• Katrina coastal and riverine high water mark collection PDF. (FEMA)

• What has changed 20 years on from Hurricane Katrina? (Darren Bett, BBC)

• Amtrak’s Gulf Coast route restored 20 years after Hurricane Katrina. (Andrew Wulfeck, Fox Weather)

About

Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster. Connecting weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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