The National Weather Service has issued an extreme heat warning through Tuesday morning, with high temperatures between 96 and 103 degrees Fahrenheit expected across the Portland-Vancouver metro area, the Columbia River Gorge, much of the Willamette Valley and the foothills of the northern and central Oregon Cascades.

On Friday morning, Multnomah County officials declared an emergency due to the heat. The county announced two daytime cooling centers would be open from noon to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, in Gresham and downtown Portland.

More resources: Where to stay cool in Oregon, SW Washington during extreme heat

In Southern Oregon, a separate extreme heat warning is in effect Friday afternoon through Monday night for much of Jackson and Josephine counties. High temperatures there could reach 107 degrees.

An extreme heat watch is in place Saturday afternoon through Wednesday evening for a large swath of north-central and northeast Oregon, including the Lower Columbia Basin and the Blue Mountains.

Local organizations help those experiencing homelessness during the extreme heat

Roy Medals sleeps in a downtown Portland park until he gets kicked out, then finds another. He looks for shade during the heat of the day and stays hydrated. He said homeless people need to take the heat seriously, particularly those on medication.

“Get indoors. Get into a cooling shelter or something,” Medals said. “Because your body temperature rises and you can get heat stroke and die. I know several people who died while on medication. They didn’t have the proper area to stay cool.”

Medals was having breakfast at the Blanchet House in downtown Portland Friday morning as temperatures began to climb. Staff there have set up cooling spray stations and are walking the streets, handing out cold water to make sure people are OK.

“There’s not a lot of shade in Old Town,” said Scott Kerman, the director of Blanchet House. “There’s also what they call the ‘heat island’ effect, which is in these concrete urban areas, it can feel five to seven degrees hotter than the actual temperature.”

Kerman said recent heat waves have changed the way Blanchet House does things.

“First and foremost, the word is hydrate,” he said. “We just make sure that we have enough water to hand out to people. People donate plastic bottles of water and we store those in our fridge or freezer and get them very, very cold to hand out to people.”

Kerman said when staff do welfare checks, they’re looking for signs of heat illness like lethargy, profuse sweating or throbbing headaches. If they find someone suffering, they’ll get help.

“We almost move into a first responder type of posture,” Kerman said. “Just to keep the community safe and well.”

The heat is extremely dangerous for people who are unsheltered. But in Multnomah County, most of the people who died recently from heat had somewhere to live. They just didn’t have adequate ventilation or a place to cool down.

Those looking for cooling shelters — housed or unhoused — are advised to visit 211info.org or call 211 for information.

Counties across Oregon, including Clackamas, Washington and Multnomah, are opening cooling shelters for the duration of the heat wave.

In Washington state, organizers have also opened emergency shelters across Clark County to help people beat the heat.

TriMet has said it will not turn away anyone who cannot pay while traveling to or from an emergency cooling center between 11 a.m. and 10 p.m., Friday, Aug. 22, through Saturday, Aug. 23. The agency asks people to let their bus operators know.

Fares are still required for other trips.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/08/22/oregon-heat-weather-extreme-multnomah-county-willamette-valley/