PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Sunny skies and warmer temperatures will turn Portland into an island this weekend. The Portland island won’t involve water, but rather an island of heat surrounded by cooler temperatures.
This is known as the urban heat island effect. Cars, buildings, and pavement all help absorb, reflect and emit the afternoon sun. Suburban locations typically have more trees and grass than a downtown landscape. Trees not only create more shade, but vegetation doesn’t retain heat like asphalt.
Portland’s downtown air temperature will likely sit warmer than the surrounding metro area this weekend. This comes as The National Weather Service keeps all of northwest Oregon and parts of western Washington under an Excessive Heat Watch through Monday evening.
Two years ago, more than 70 people in the Portland area died in the heat, and as temperatures rise again, city and county leaders are working to prevent it from happening in 2023.
More than half of those who died in 2021 were living in neighborhoods where too much pavement and not enough trees led to more heat and less shade. To protect residents in these areas, the city plans to install more small parks on the east side of the city.
Vivek Shandas, a PSU Climate Change Professor, said trees and greenspace offers more than shade to people in a park: It affects homes and apartments nearby.
Areas with big parking lots or industrial and commercial businesses packed in alongside homes and apartments are heat magnets that don’t allow wind to provide air flow.
Shandas said that while the state and county provide air conditioning units, the machines often can’t keep up when temperatures get over 100 degrees.
Stick with KOIN 6 News and KOIN 6 Weather as this early-season heat wave sweeps through the region.