A brief but potentially record-breaking heatwave this weekend will be replaced rapidly by much cooler, but likely still dry, weather early next week.

If the forecast proves accurate, this will be the driest May in more than two decades at the Baker City Airport.

The National Weather Service is forecasting a high of 92 degrees at the airport on Saturday, May 31. The weather service has issued a heat advisory for Baker County from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.

That would break the daily record of 91 degrees, set in 1986.

Friday’s forecast high of 84 would be well above the average of 70 degrees, it wouldn’t threaten the record for May 30, which is 94 degrees set in 1986 and tied in 2020.

The torrid temperatures won’t persist.

The National Weather Service predicts a Pacific storm will move into Eastern Oregon late Saturday, causing high temperatures to plummet about 20 degrees on Sunday compared to the previous day.

The forecast high for both Sunday and Monday is 72.

Although computer models earlier this week depicted an unseasonably powerful storm, with even cooler temperatures and widespread rain, more recent models show a weaker system with a much lower chance of rain.

The Weather Service isn’t predicting any chance of rain in Baker City through early next week.

May’s rainfall total at the airport, as of Friday, is 0.37.

That’s the least for the month since 2002, with 0.29 of an inch, and rank as the fifth-driest May since World War II.

The driest May since 1943, when precipitation records started at the airport, was 1950, with 0.04 of an inch. The runner-up is 1965, with 0.18, and the third-driest is 1982, with 0.25.

On average May is the wettest month at the airport, with an average of 1.42 inches.