PORTLAND, Ore. — June got off to an unusually cool and wet start in much of Oregon, capping off a spring season that has managed to turn the entire state drought-free — conditions that officials say will hopefully set up a milder-than-usual wildfire season as the state heads into summer.
Wildfire danger is expected to be below-average for much of Oregon this year, although some pockets will be at higher risk. A big part of the improved outlook comes down to the El Niño weather pattern that began in the fall, which allowed the state to build up a decently sized mountain snowpack for a second year in a row.
Late spring snow in the mountains and record-breaking rainfall in Portland earlier this month stamped out drought conditions across the state. Hot summer weather is still on the way for July and August, but KGW meteorologist Rod Hill said the early rain will go a long way to help reduce the impact.
"We're coming up off of two pretty good snowpack years," he said. "It was the snowpack two winters ago that wiped out California’s drought completely out and started to improve our situation."
Even though there's a couple of warm days ahead later this week, looking into the later part of this month, it doesn’t look like Portland is going to see any major heatwave, which will also help out with drought conditions.
But while the Portland area has generally seen things go well in June, things haven't been looking as good in parts of Washington state.
"Most of the concern is going to be in Washington area, where they had a pretty early start because of minimal snowpack compared to Oregon," said fire meteorologist Jon Bonk with the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.
He said even though parts of Washington state have already seen some wildfires start, he still believes this year will be below-average.
"As a region, I would expect that we are going to see below normal activity, but there will be areas that do receive fires," he added.
But in a season where anything can happen, Bonk said he still wants everyone to be safe outdoors this summer.