Blog Article
Best Fourth of July Weather 2026: Pacific Northwest Shines
Portland scores 92/100 on July 4th and Seattle leads the nation on July 5th. Three straight days of Beautiful-rated weather for the Pacific Northwest this holiday weekend.
Portland Delivers on the Fourth: The Pacific Northwest's Holiday Weekend Is as Good as It Gets
Yesterday, 105 mph winds hit Huron, South Dakota. Grapefruit-sized hail fell in Iowa. Flash flooding shut down stretches of I-90. And today, an Enhanced Risk of severe storms is still cranking across Nebraska and Iowa while a dangerous heat wave bakes the Mid-Atlantic.
Meanwhile, across the Cascades and up into the Northern Rockies, it's just... nice out.
Really nice, actually. Three days in a row of Beautiful-rated weather for a corridor stretching from southern Oregon through the Willamette Valley into western Montana. If you're anywhere in that zone this holiday weekend, you got lucky.
Today, July 3rd: The pre-Fourth warm-up
Today's national leader board is anchored by Tri-Cities, WA, Boise, ID, Spokane, WA, and Salem, OR, all scoring 92/100 in the Beautiful category. Zone-average highs of 78°F, dewpoints around 46°F, 15% cloud cover, and rain chances that round to essentially zero. The heat stress sub-score for this zone is 97.7/100, meaning the warmth is comfortable rather than oppressive.
Boise hits 85°F with a dewpoint of just 42°F. That's legitimately dry, comfortable air for early July. Salem stays cooler at 74°F. Missoula, MT comes in at 65°F with only 5% cloud cover and an AQI of 42. If you're near any of these cities today, a patio lunch or an afternoon at the park is about as good as a Friday gets.
One real caveat: UV indices in this zone average 7.8, which is enough to burn in roughly 25 to 30 minutes of unprotected sun exposure. Sunscreen is not optional.
Also worth noting: fire weather is critical today across eastern Utah and western Colorado, and low humidity combined with gusty winds is an ongoing concern across the Four Corners region. That's not this zone, but it's a reminder that the dry air fueling the comfortable conditions in the Northwest is the same air mass causing problems farther south.
July 4th: Portland steps up
Saturday is the headline day of the weekend. Portland jumps to the top of the national city rankings with a score of 92/100 in the Beautiful category. Vancouver, WA matches it. Ashland and Medford, OR are right there too. Billings, MT brings the Northern Rockies anchor.
The zone scores 90.4/100 overall, which puts it just 1.6 points short of Perfect. Here's what that looks like in practice: Portland hits 73°F with a dewpoint of 54°F and 11% cloud cover. Rain chance is 2%. Wind averages 11 mph with gusts to 18 mph, which is breezy but well within comfortable range. For a Fourth of July parade, a neighborhood cookout, or an evening fireworks show, that's about as cooperative as the sky gets.
The reason it doesn't reach Perfect is straightforward. UV indices at Ashland (8.2) and Billings (8.0) both exceed the Perfect gate of UV 7 or below. That UV constraint is the actual ceiling here, not any meaningful comfort issue. The air feels excellent.
Billings at 91°F with a dewpoint of 64°F is the warmest, most humid city in this zone and sits at the eastern edge of the Beautiful area. It's still a solid day, just not as crisp as Portland or Ashland.
For context on how unusual this is: the rest of the country's Fourth of July picture includes a Slight Risk of severe storms across the Ohio Valley into the Mid-Atlantic covering New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, plus a heat wave pushing heat indices well above 100°F from the Northeast into the Gulf States. The National Independence Day Parade in Washington is happening under that threat. Portland's 73°F and partly sunny is a genuinely different universe.
July 5th, Sunday: Seattle's turn at the top
The Pacific Northwest run doesn't stop after the Fourth. Sunday may actually be the best single day of the three for the broadest footprint of cities.
Seattle jumps to the number one spot nationally on Sunday with a score of 92/100. Portland, Spokane, Salem, Eugene, Yakima, Bellingham, Olympia, Longview, and Wenatchee all also post 92/100. The entire Washington state coast of cities is running Beautiful on Sunday.
Seattle specifically: 74°F high, dewpoint of 48°F, 13% cloud cover, winds at 8.6 mph. Spokane: 80°F with a remarkably dry dewpoint of 39°F. Portland: 80°F under 20% cloud cover.
The zone scores 87.3/100 overall in the Beautiful category. What keeps it from Perfect is a combination of UV averaging 7.5 across the zone (above the Perfect gate of 7.0 or below) and AQI values in the 40 to 48 range that clear the Beautiful gate but not the stricter Perfect gate of 35 or below. The AQI readings likely reflect residual smoke from ongoing fire activity in the region. None of these numbers diminish what is an exceptional early-July Sunday.
The week after the holiday: the ridge holds, the ceiling drops
Once Monday arrives, the Beautiful ratings ease back. The upper-level ridge anchored over the Intermountain West and Pacific Coast keeps the region in Nice territory through at least next Thursday, but the top-end city scores shift to Nice rather than Beautiful. Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, and Seattle all hold Nice ratings through the weekend of July 6 to 9, with the California coast showing particularly consistent scores.
Confidence in the extended outlook is lower, as expected at that range. But the pattern is clear: the West Coast and Intermountain West corridor stays on the favorable side of the ledger while the central and eastern U.S. deals with recurring convection and, per the WPC extended discussion, a major heat wave building across the South and Southeast next week.
For a full look at where the Nice weather sits each day, the Nice Weather outlook page has the maps updated daily.
The streak underneath all of this
One more thing worth mentioning. California cities have now been at Nice or better for 25 consecutive days. Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oakland, Stockton, and Redding are all sitting on 25-day live streaks. That's the quiet backdrop behind the more dramatic Pacific Northwest holiday story. The West Coast ridge that's making Portland's Fourth so good has been quietly keeping California in comfortable territory for nearly a month.
If you're in the Pacific Northwest this weekend, go outside. The weather earned it.