Heat Building
High pressure passed through the area over the weekend and is now situated off the New England coast.
This high will strengthen and meander off the coast for most of the week, resulting in a prolonged heat wave across the eastern United States, including here in the Finger Lakes.
The heat will start today with temperatures about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday. This will put many areas around 90 degrees this afternoon. Urban areas will be warmer, and rural hilltops cooler.
Dewpoints will be well into the 60s and possibly even low 70s at times, making it feel muggy and several degrees warmer with the heat index. Southwest winds will blow at speeds under 10 mph.
There is a subtle perturbation in the atmosphere over southeastern Michigan this morning. This feature is slowly drifting eastward. It may touch off a few stray showers and storms late this afternoon and early this evening, but most areas will probably stay dry.
The nighttime hours will remain warm and muggy. Overnight lows will mainly be in the low 70s.
Tomorrow will be a repeat, only hotter. Temperatures will quickly rise through the morning and into the afternoon.
Even higher elevations should be around 90 degrees, with many areas in the low and mid 90s. Heat index values may exceed 100 degrees in some areas with dewpoints remaining in the 60s and 70s.
Once again, there will be a small chance for a few showers or storms, depending on the strength and path of subtle perturbations in the atmosphere. Most areas will probably stay dry, but anywhere that does see some rain will get some late day relief from the heat, at least temporarily.
Tuesday night will be particularly warm, with many areas not getting below the mid 70s.
The chances for rain are lower, but more uncertain, by Wednesday. It is probably a safe assumption to say most areas will again stay dry.
This will allow temperatures to at least match Tuesday, if not nudge another degree or two higher. Widespread low and mid 90s are likely.
Late Week and Weekend Heat, Rain
Thursday may end up being the hottest day of the week, though once again, any afternoon thunderstorm development could interrupt the heat. Like Wednesday, the chances for rain are more uncertain, but lower in my opinion.
Thursday will not be much hotter than Tuesday or Wednesday, but more areas may find themselves at or above 95 degrees with heat index values over 100.
With little relief overnight and day after day of heat, the cumulative heat stress will be building significantly by this point. The chances for heat-related illnesses will be increasing with each additional day of heat.
There will be a chance for a small cold front to move through on Friday. Showers and some thunderstorms will be possible with the front, which should knock temperatures back a bit. Urban areas, especially in the Southern Tier, will still probably be in the 90s with slightly cooler temperatures to the north.
Scattered showers and storms will continue to be possible into the weekend, keeping temperatures in the 80s to near 90 degrees. Overnight lows may be able to get back into the 60s as well.
Rain looks even more likely early next week with a more potent cold front moving through the area. High temperatures by next Tuesday may even spend a day in the 70s.
However, the overall pattern through the end of June continues to at least look warm, with daily highs in the 80s and chances for 90-degree days here and there.
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This graphic represents an average over the entire Finger Lakes region. Localized variations should be expected.
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Ithaca Tom
The heat wave has moderated quite a bit with more clouds and rain chances every day and now doesn’t seem to be a ‘heat dome’ anymore. Syracuse at one point had a 7 day sunny heat dome heat wave forecast that would have lasted monday thru sunday.
Meteorologist Drew Montreuil
Hi Ithaca Tom! I can’t comment too much on what the media is saying and claiming other than a lot of the graphics displayed are probably just straight model data with little to no human interaction. I’m sure that phenomenon varies from one source to the next, so I can’t be sure how the “syracuse” forecast you are referring to was made.
For me, my forecast highs have been very consistent for the last week if you check out the 7 day forecast graphics in each day’s blog post. Last Tuesday, I had near 90 for today, and I’ve pretty much stuck near that consistently since. Same for the other upcoming days.
I’m also remaining fairly skeptical of widespread rain and clouds to mitigate a lot of the heat. The few showers and storms that do pop up will mostly be late in the day, and I’ve seen quite a few cases where it is hot, humid, and extremely unstable… but there is nothing to trigger the storms to actually form, and little to nothing happens.
I’ll also add, however, that even subtle perturbations in the atmosphere can trigger activity in these set-ups, and those type of small micro influences are not something the models are very good at picking up on, so there are biases in the models both for and against rain.
As for the terms “heat wave” and “heat dome”… I again don’t know how the media is using them, but they have more scientific definitions that fit this pattern and aren’t something that will just disappear here.
A Heat Wave is 3 consecutive days of 90º or higher temperatures. As I write this at 2:30 PM Monday, we have places in the FLX reaching 90 degrees, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday should be shoe-ins for breaking 90.
A heat dome refers to a large area of hot weather associated with higher pressures in the upper levels of the atmosphere. On a weather map, the upper air pattern ends up looking like a dome, and it is hot…so heat dome! That is certainly the pattern we are in now.
And to bring it all together… along the edge of the heat dome is where those subtle perturbations in the atmosphere are going to reside, bringing together the combination of heat, humidity, and something to trigger the showers and storms.