Three of six city of Spokane pools extend hours because of high temperatures this weekend

The high temperature may have missed the 100 mark by 1 degree Monday, but Spokane residents flooded the Comstock Park pool’s evening open swim as a respite from the day’s heat.

“It’s hard to get everybody to exercise when it’s so hot,” said Deanna Stark. “We’re grumpy when it’s hot, but everybody is happy at the pool.”

Spokane barely missed tying the record for the most multiple triple -digit days in a year – though the summer isn’t nearly over.

The current record was set in 2022, 2021 and 1928, but Monday’s high temperature was 99, keeping the number of 100-degrees days this summer at five , said Krista Karrothers, National Weather Service meteorologist. Temperatures are expected to drop later this week, with a high of 92 expected on Wednesday before dropping into the mid-80s .

The heat drove three of the city of Spokane’s six pools to open up an extra hour and a half of open swim sessions, said Fianna Dickson, City of Spokane Parks and Recreation manager. Cannon, Comstock and Hillyard pools allowed people to attend open swim sessions from 6:30 to 8 p.m. alongside the 1-4 p.m. sessions at all six pools, bringing in 2,361 swimmers on Saturday.

Claire Norton brought her daughter Cally Becker to Comstock.

Cally’s favorite sport may be basketball, but she loves swimming in the summers because “it really cools you off.”

Dickson said the Witter and Hillyard locations were the only two pools that did not hit maximum capacity during the daytime open swim sessions.

While some people will wait in line until other swimmers leave, staff directed people to other pools which had not reached capacity, she said.