Spring can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be winter or summer in Baker County.

The weather continues to careen between extremes.

And this week might be most tumultuous period yet.

After a soggy, cool weekend that doused the Baker City Airport with more than half of May’s average rainfall in just two days and bombarded the mountains with heavy snow, a rapid shift in the weather pattern later this week could bring the hottest weather since last October.

The potent weekend storm was more typical of late winter than the middle of spring.

The high temperature at the airport on Sunday, May 5 was 50 degrees — 14 degrees below average.

Rainfall totaled .99 of an inch — .54 on Sunday and .45 on Saturday.

Those are substantial amounts even for May, which is statistically the wettest month in Baker City, with an average total of 1.43 inches.

The National Weather Service forecast a second storm to continue the unseasonably cool, damp conditions through Tuesday, May 7. The temperature might not get to 50 that day, and snow could mix with rain at times.

But the situation thereafter will change dramatically, and rapidly.

A building ridge of high pressure will clear the clouds and cause temperatures to rise starting Wednesday, May 8.

The National Weather Service is forecasting high temperatures of 75 on Friday, May 10, 79 on Saturday and 80 on Sunday.

The latter two temperatures would be 14 and 13 degrees above average, respectively.

The temperature hasn’t reached 80 degrees as the airport since Oct. 9, 2023, when the high was 80.

This week’s fluctuations follow a pattern that’s persisted for the past month or so.

The temperature topped 70 on seven of 30 days in April at the airport, but each brief warm spell was followed by at least a day or two with temperatures well below average.

April’s rainfall total of 1.47 inches was nearly double the average of 0.80, but most fell on just three days — 0.52 on the 14th, 0.38 on the 3rd and 0.23 on the 12th.