The heat is rushing back into the region after last week’s long break. Yesterday we topped off in the upper 80s to near 90. Going forward we are going to have a lot of days in the 90s. The heat index will be in the 100s.
Today we have high pressure centered to our southeast.
We’ll have a lot of sunshine with a light south wind through the day. High temperatures will run in the low 90s this afternoon. There will be a couple of mid 90s inland. However, the heat index will be in the upper 90s for many. It will probably be near 100 around Williamsburg. I’m not expecting any rain except for a stray shower or storm in the entire region.
Tomorrow we’ll start off warm and muggy. Temps will be in the upper 70s in the morning. We’ll go up from there. Skies will be mostly to partly sunny. High temps will rise to the low-mid 90s. The heat index will be near 100 degrees.
We’ll be even hotter on Thursday as the temperatures and humidity build. High temps will run up into the mid 90s. There could even be a few upper 90s inland. The heat index will likely be in the lower 100s. We’ll be partly cloudy with some isolated pm showers and/or storms. We’ll still be in the 90s on Friday, but there will be some more clouds and a few showers and storms. That might knock off a couple degrees off of the high from Thursday.
Then we’ll be near 90 on Saturday and in the 80s on Sunday. There will be some scattered showers and storms over the weekend, but it will be far from a washout.
The tropics are heating up too. As of this writing there is “Potential Tropical Cyclone #6” in the eastern Caribbean. A Potential tropical cyclone means that a tropical disturbance is showing signs of strength and it is likely to become a tropical system. However, it lacks the organization to classify it as a tropical storm or tropical depression. That could change at any minute.
The forecast calls for this to turn into a tropical storm and move towards western Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic over the next 24 to 36 hours.
There is a fair amount of certainty in that scenario. However, it will likely interact with a lot of land through that time. So the certainty drops sharply after that point. It could head anywhere from the east Coast of Florida to well out into the Gulf of Mexico.
The models are literally all over the place after nearing Cuba.
So stay tuned for updates on that.
In world news… The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a group of scientists that study, track, and forecast Global Warming and Climate Change. They just came out with their latest report. It talks about how the global average temperature has risen between by about 0.8 and 1.2 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times (1850-1900). They report on the likelihood that we will reach 1.5 degrees C sooner than previously forecast. This is a number that was set by the Paris agreement a few years ago. It paints a dire picture for the planet, but it also talks about ways to reduce emissions and try to curb future warming. Here is the actual report: IPCC 2021 report.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler