Western Washington escaped the heat thanks in part to a low-pressure system sitting off the coast providing the region with cooler air, National Weather Service meteorologist Carly Kovacik told McClatchy News. The Puget Sound area stayed at an average high of about 80 degrees during the mid-July “heat dome” that cooked most of the U.S. Interestingly, Western Washington was one of the only regions in the country that didn’t get blasted by heat throughout July. The World Meteorological Organization has declared that July 2023 was officially the hottest month on record.

(Karen Ducey)Įarth recorded its hottest-ever month in July. The report challenges the notion that hydropower will carry the Northwest into its clean energy future, suggesting that without meaningful modeling for climate change in energy resource planning, the West will be ill-prepared to meet demand and its ambitious clean-energy goals. The hydropower variability this year represents one example of some of the changes the country can expect in a warming world, according to a new report from Stanford researchers. While the Golden State’s reservoirs retained an abundant supply of water after an abnormally wet winter, in Washington, the nation’s leading producer of hydropower, some systems saw less water than expected. Climate change is making PNW hydropower less reliableĪs drought settled in over the Pacific Northwest this year, some electric utility managers did something unusual: They looked to California for hydropower.

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