Currently in Portland — June 22, 2023: A perfectly sunny, summer day with temps reaching the mid-80s.

The weather, currently.

Summer is finally here! This one felt like an especially long time coming, and the weather is celebrating appropriately. Thursday will be a beautiful day, with sun in the sky and high temps reaching the mid-80s. It looks like these summer days are going to last for a while, so I'm eyeing my calendar for blocks of time when I can sneak out of the office and into the garden. I'm starting from scratch in a new space, which means I've got my work cut out for me. And it's late in the season to start. But there's still plenty to do! For now I'm planting some simple flower borders and boxes while I plot the demise of the grass lawn. Ultimately I'm hoping for a wildlife and pollinator haven, but that may take a few seasons to achieve. I hope you're all able to get some sun, too.

— Stella Harris

What you can do, currently.

Currently is entirely member funded, and right now we need your support!

Our annual summer membership drive is underway — with a goal to double our membership base over the next six weeks which will guarantee this service can continue throughout this year’s hurricane season. We’ll need 745 new members by July 31 to make this goal happen.

If these emails mean something important to you — and more importantly, if the idea of being part of a community that’s building a weather service for the climate emergency means something important to you — please chip in just $5 a month to continue making this service possible.

Thank you!!

What you need to know, currently.

Tropical Storm Bret, the first named storm of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season to threaten land, is expected to pass through the Leeward Islands on Thursday, very close to Barbados.

Initially forecast to grow into the season’s first hurricane, Bret has struggled and should remain a mid-range tropical storm until it dissipates in a day or two in the Caribbean Sea. It should pose no severe threat to the islands besides the potential for some heavy rainfall.

This year’s list of storm names is a modified version of the same list used in 2005, 2011 and 2017. It’s one of the most notorious lists of the six lists in regular rotation with the names Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan, Wilma, Irene, Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Nate removed due to their outsized impact to protect the mental health of survivors.

—Eric Holthaus