First Warning Forecast | The Heat Develops
...And We Try To Hold It Back As Long As We Can.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Sunny skies are hazing over a touch, as a few waves of passing clouds drop in from the north. A weak front is trying to do what it can to keep us from experiencing the ‘heat dome’ that is building in the central part of the country. While others are approaching 100° on the thermometer, we’ll stay in the lower 90s (though of course your dashboard thermometer can still show triple-digit numbers when parked in the sunshine). The humidity will add to the mugginess, so be sure to take those same afternoon precautions like we did in July during our last heat wave. Back then however, we had public pools and spray parks at our disposal. Now that the kids are back in school (classes start today at Marshall!) there aren’t the lifeguards around to staff those facilities. Even after sunset this evening we’ll still be in the 80s, only dipping back into the upper 60s near dawn tomorrow. It will be a rough night for sleeping in places that don’t have air conditioning.
Tuesday will see an interesting ‘battlefield’ of sorts set up. We’ve got the heat building through the central part of the country, but also a front of cool air dropping through New England. This sort of ‘back-door’ scenario will bring comfort to the east coast, but also edge closer to our region from the east as the heat approaches us from the west. Some passing wave of clouds will also show, hoping to keep us in the 80s for the day rather than the 90s. The end result might as well be academic, as either way it will feel hot; there isn’t much difference between 89° and 91°. At times we’ll also be tracking some thunderstorm clusters that form in this battleground air to our north and move down in an arc toward our direction. The outermost edge of the heat, where it meets the cooler air from the east, is often called the ‘Ring of Fire’, and from Wednesday to Friday we’ll be tracking the potential for any random plume of storms to blossom to our north and make a run at us. It would be the only way we manage to stay out of the mid-90s, so kind of a “Catch-22″ to deal with late-week. Friday seems particularly concerning, as the heat will be looking to peak but also a cool-down is trying to work into Saturday (more like a return to ‘normal’) so there’s always a risk for severe weather in that scenario. We’ll be keeping an eye on that of course, but there’s enough in the present day weather for all of our attention.
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