The weather this last week across the Inland Empire was pretty nice. Conditions were generally dry and temperatures once again warmed up to above normal levels on Friday and Saturday. As of late last week, readings were forecast to hit 90 degrees in the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene area on Sunday and Monday. Our first 90-degree day last year was on June 7.

Over the several months, we’ve seen a number of days with high temperatures averaging around 20 degrees above normal levels. With readings this warm, there was a concern about flooding from the rapid snowmelt. However, flood worries in our part of the country are minimal as moisture totals have been below normal for the spring season.

Many of us have seen lowland flooding in the winter months, but the Inland Empire often has its greatest risk of high waters during the spring season. They typically result from torrential thunderstorm downpours plus warm rains falling on melting snowpacks in the higher elevations. Much of this flooding generally occurs in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, in the highlands of northeastern Washington as well as across portions of North Idaho and western Montana around this time of year.

For 2016, Texas has been experiencing some of the worst flooding in history. Parts of the Lone Star State have now seen three “500-Year Floods” since May of 2015. There has been so much rain, that it’s estimated that an amazing 35 “trillion” gallons of water had fallen in Texas last month, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, Texas. They say that’s enough water to cover the whole state up to nearly 8 inches deep.

For much of May of 2016, there was at least one location that received 4 inches of more of rain every day in May since May 5. Some stations in Texas have already received nearly 200 percent of their normal rainfall for an entire season, and it’s only early June. In late May, a town called Bandera, about 45 miles northwest of San Antonio, picked up an estimated 10 inches of rain in one night that obviously led to heavy flooding and widespread damage.

When the flooding hit Texas in 2015, damage was estimated around $3 billion. For 2016, damage will likely be in the billions of dollars as rivers are overflowing their banks.

The last time a disaster was declared for flooding in North Idaho was in early December of 2015. It happened in Bonner County, as that was a very wet month across our region. A warm El Nino brought heavy rainfall and snow melt in Bonner County that washed out area roads.

Perhaps the worst flood ever seen in recent times across our region happened in May and June of 1948, known as the “Greatest Spring Snowmelt Flooding.” This event is listed as the second biggest weather event in Washington’s history.

During that time, there was widespread flooding in North Idaho and eastern Washington, especially along the Columbia River. Below Priest Rapids in Washington, the Columbia River topped at 458.65 feet, an all-time record. Flood stage is 432 feet. At Lake Pend Oreille near Hope, a crest of 2,071.2 feet was measured with a flood stage of 2,063.5 feet. Methow River at Pateros, Wash., hit 12.30 feet with a flood stage of only 10 feet. At the St. Joe River at Calder, a record 18.10 feet was seen. That particular river’s flood stage is 13 feet.

In two weeks on June 20 at 3:34 p.m., summer officially begins. Despite the hot weather over the weekend, Cliff and I don’t see a repeat of the extremely hot and dry conditions in 2015. Last year, we had 16 days in a row with temperatures at or above 90 degrees from June 25 through July 10. There were four blisteringly hot afternoons during the period with triple-digit readings, including the hottest June day ever recorded in Coeur d’Alene at 105 degrees on Sunday, June 28, 2015, “Ironman Day.” And, we didn’t have any measurable rainfall from June 4 to July 10 at Cliff’s station in 2015.

As ocean temperatures continue to cool down along the Equatorial regions, we still see plenty of warm and sunny days with only occasional showers and thunderstorms this summer season. The early portion of July should be another period of hot weather with temperatures in the 90s and, perhaps, close to the 100-degree mark.

Contact Randy Mann at [email protected]