Blog Article
Best Fourth of July Weather: Pacific Northwest Shines
The Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies have the best weather in the country this July 4th weekend, with Beautiful ratings, dry air, and near-zero rain chances.
The Fourth of July's Best Weather Is Already Here: Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies Step Up
The streak we've been watching in California is now at 24 days and counting, but the headline for this holiday weekend isn't the streak anymore. It's the handoff that's already in progress.
Today, Thursday July 2nd, the best weather in the contiguous U.S. sits across the Northern Rockies and Intermountain West. Pullman, WA and Butte, MT are both scoring 92/100 in the Beautiful category, with highs in the upper 60s to mid-70s, dewpoints in the mid-40s, and rain chances at just 2%. The air is genuinely crisp. Not merely tolerable, crisp. Meridian and Caldwell, ID are right there too. If you're near the Idaho-Washington border today and wondering whether to eat lunch outside, the answer is yes.
The Beautiful zone scores an 86.9/100 overall. What keeps it from Perfect? Two things. First, UV indices average 7.7 across the zone, just above the 7.0 gate that Perfect requires. Second, zone temperatures average 73.4°F, which is comfortable but scores slightly cool for peak output. Neither of those is a complaint. Just wear sunscreen if you're out on a trail or at a trailhead for a few hours.
One caveat worth noting: afternoon wind gusts funnel through the Cascade gaps and some canyon corridors in the Inland Northwest, hitting 35 to 45 mph in spots near OTX and PDT territory. That's not a dealbreaker for most outdoor plans, but it matters if you're setting up a canopy or heading out on a lake.
Fire weather is a real concern just to the south of this nice zone. Critical fire weather conditions are in place across the Four Corners region today and into Friday, with relative humidity dropping to single digits in parts of western and southern Colorado. The Aspen Acres Fire area is in the thick of that. Keep that context in mind if your holiday weekend takes you toward the Colorado Rockies or eastern Utah.
Friday, July 3rd: California's Coast Takes Over
The baton passes to coastal California on Friday. The day's top performers shift to a corridor stretching from the southern Oregon interior through central and coastal California. Medford, OR and Lakeview, OR both score 92/100 in the Beautiful category. Ventura and Santa Maria, CA are right alongside them at 82/100 and 92/100 respectively.
The numbers for this zone are genuinely clean: 1% rain chance, 15% average cloud cover, dewpoints averaging 48°F, and winds averaging 11 mph with gusts to about 16 mph. That's a patio breakfast and a beach afternoon in the same day.
The one honest caveat is UV. Every city in this zone is running UV indices between 8.0 and 8.6, which clears the Beautiful tier but gates out Perfect entirely. If you're spending extended time outdoors on July 3rd in Ventura or Paso Robles, sunscreen and a hat aren't optional.
For San Diego Padres fans making the trip to Dodger Stadium for the Friday night game, Los Angeles scores Nice on Day 2 with a high around 80°F and a dewpoint near 52°F. Light jacket weather by the seventh inning, but nothing dramatic.
The Fourth of July: Pacific Northwest Has Its Best Day of the Week
This is the story the data has been building toward all week. Saturday, July 4th, the Pacific Northwest earns its highest scores of the entire seven-day period.
Portland scores 92/100 Beautiful. Salem scores 92/100. Eugene scores 92/100. San Jose scores 92/100. Boise scores 92/100. Seattle scores 82/100. The Beautiful zone as a whole sits at 85.5/100, with a precipitation sub-score of 99.3/100 and sky cover averaging just 10% cloud fraction. Salem, OR is nearly cloudless at 3% cover with a high of 77.9°F and a dewpoint of 48.9°F. Zero rain chance.
Pocatello, ID's forecast office put it simply: no rain and light wind expected for the holiday. That about covers it.
If you're watching the Los Angeles Angels at the Seattle Mariners on the Fourth, T-Mobile Park is going to be about as pleasant as an outdoor-ish stadium gets in early July. Seattle's high reaches 76.1°F with a dewpoint of 51.6°F and an AQI of 39.
The Seafair Weekend Festival is still a few weeks out, but anyone planning around Pacific Northwest outdoor events this week has genuinely lucked out. The Independence Day Parade in Washington, DC is a different story entirely, with dangerous heat and humidity in the Mid-Atlantic that has nothing to do with the nice-weather picture out West.
For the full picture of where nice weather is holding through the week, the Nice Weather outlook page has the day-by-day maps and city rankings.
After the Fourth: West Coast Holds, Everywhere Else Stays Complicated
Days 4 through 7 (July 5 through 8) show the nice-weather window consolidating along the West Coast. The top scores shift to Nice, with Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland all holding 82/100. The ceiling drops because of the extended forecast period, not because conditions fall apart. Dewpoints stay in the low-to-mid 40s across the western corridor, skies stay mostly clear, and rain chances stay negligible.
The central and eastern U.S. is a different map entirely through the weekend. A broad upper-level ridge keeps heat indices above 100°F across a wide swath from the southern Plains through the Ohio Valley and into the Northeast. WPC is flagging Major to Extreme HeatRisk conditions across much of the Midwest and East Coast through the holiday. That pattern begins to weaken by Sunday, but hazardous heat may linger into early next week for the Southeast.
If you're in the Pacific Northwest or coastal California this Fourth of July weekend, you're sitting on some of the best outdoor weather in the country right now. Don't waste it indoors.