Good Tuesday, everyone. Heat lovers, rejoice!!! Some real deal summertime heat and humidity is ready to take control of the pattern for a while. This settles in through the week and into the upcoming weekend, but storms and a cooler setup settle in next week.
Highs today are in the mid and upper 80s across the east with low 90s in the west.
Highs by Wednesday start to really heat up with near 90 east and 95 in the west. Temps from Thursday through Saturday are generally 90-95 for much of central and eastern Kentucky, with highs that MAY flirt with 100 in a few spots across the west.
Thu heat index will be an even bigger player with values from 100-110 possible.
What about the chances for a few storms in the coming days? Those chances are rather small, but I can’t rule out pop up stuff going up. There’s a chance out there today, too.
The threat for storms will then increase late this weekend into early next week…
That’s when a deep trough digs into the eastern half of the country, with much cooler air settling in. Check this out…
The European Model is also all over it. Here’s the run for Monday-Wednesday…
The CFS has a VERY cool 5 day period as we get ready to close the book on July…
No one pattern can truly take control of the pattern this summer, and I think that’s AWESOME! 🙂
Have a great day and take care.
Thanks Chris, That’s good news the current heat wave will come to an end for people who have breathing problems like me. I must mention though, that some people like the heat and humidity for going swimming, boating, and fishing for those big catfish. I check out the reason the heat wave is coming to an end, the North Atlantic Oscillation which is currently in the positive phase will turn negative by the end of the week, which will slow down the westerlies in Canada and allow the cooler air to move south. I also checked out the tropics and found that tropical storm Don has formed and is heading west towards the Windward Islands. We will see how this plays out in the coming days. Have a great day everyone and keep cool.
Allow me to suggest not to get too hung up over a single aspect of what will cause a heat wave to come to an end. I’m a big fan of the NAO, but remember, despite its large scale impacts on both the eastern U.S. and western Europe, it is derived from a measurement taken from the ‘Icelandic low’ and the ‘Azores high’, thousands of miles away. Often, in the summer (and the winter as well), localized or regional persistent atmospheric features exert more influence on our weather than even the large scale feature of the NAO. Don’t get me wrong, it is a teleconnection. It will have an impact, but it is not the only player or dominant feature in town. There are other connections. I think it’s safe to say we both remember the heat wave of 1988. The NAO had a mostly positive reading in June but negative in July. Yet, it was this persistent upper ridge that became entrenched over the central U.S. (it had its influence felt from the Hudson Bay in Canada all the way to Texas). The ground became parched and July’s temperatures took off, creating a vicious cycle of higher heat and lesser moisture that led to one of the most impressive drought/heat waves we have seen in modern times. We cannot attribute this to the NAO only. There are other nearby areas of semi-permanent highs and lows that may have had more impact than other teleconnection features.
I think it’s awesome too CB! Would love a couple days in the upper 70s/low 80s with low humidity to end this school teacher’s summer with some hiking.
I can’t recall what year it was the summer of 2011or 2012 we had an impressive heat wave through out that summer with little rain. It wasn’t a short term one either it lasted from May through September. The reason I remember it was 90 on Derby day that year.
2012
Thanks for clarifying that
My apologies if I’m splitting hairs here, but in my opinion, I think the phrase ‘heat wave” is really being over used in this current stretch of weather. We’re basically going thru five days of temperatures 4-6 degrees above the normal high. Is that a heat wave? If the adverse were going on in the dead of winter where the we had 5 days straight of 35 degree temps as highs (a little below the norm), would that be a cold wave? I think that would be called seasonal weather.
I agree Mark just typical summer weather
Thanks Mike S, for expanding the information on the North Atlantic Oscillation. Yes, you are right that there are other factors that contribute to heat waves, cold arctic outbreaks, and blizzards. I remember the cold winters of 1976-77 and 1977-78, where are large ridge of high pressure formed along the west coast all the way to Alaska. East of this ridge, frigid air move south and east all the way to florida. At the same time a weak El nino formed and the subtropical jet hook up with the polar jet, which brought one snowstorm after another eastward. At that same time the NAO was in the negative phase for longer periods, which to this date cannot be explained. Have a great evening everyone.
From the “It Could Be Far Worse Department”
Roughly on this date back in 1995 was finally seeing the drawdown of one of the worst heat waves in the history of this country. Chicago got much of the news where several hundred people perished, but other cities like Milwaukee, St Louis and other areas in the eastern US were also scorched. Unlike other heatwaves, this one had both extreme heat and extreme humidity; bad enough that Chicago’s air temperature hit 106 degrees, but dew points in the 80s exasperated the situation even more. According to NWS records, Appleton WI reached a dew point of 90 degrees which may be unusual even in Mississippi much less Wisconsin.
I was about 10 at the time and don’t recall too much from this event except for the sad story of the city of Chicago later having a m-a-s-s funeral for a dozen or so heat wave victims that were never claimed by any relatives. Stay safe everyone.