Meteorologist Kristy Steward's First Warning Forecast
Happy Friday! Today was another extremely hot and humid day -- the 6th consecutive day with heat indices over 100°. A handful of us were able to get some brief relief from the heat with isolated storms popping up this afternoon. Some places had over 2" rain dumped in those storms. Once the sun set, the storms lost their fuel and fizzled out. Tonight will be mostly dry, warm, and muggy. Lows drop to the mid 70s.
Saturday will make it a full 7 days of extreme heat as high temperatures return to the mid 90s and feels-like temperatures hit over 100° again. However, that should be our final day of extreme heat. Later Saturday, the Bermuda High that's been bringing us this excessive heat and humidity will begin to break down and a cold front will slowly start to move in from the northwest.
This will bring us our first round of scattered thunderstorms Saturday late afternoon/evening. The good news, this rain will cool us down. The bad news, some of those thunderstorms could become severe.
All of our Virginia counties are under a Level 1 severe risk Saturday afternoon and evening. The main threat is damaging winds. Heavy downpours are expected too.
As the cold front slowly drops southeast, more scattered thunderstorms are in store throughout all of Sunday and into Monday. High temperatures start cooling down to the mid 80s Sunday and remain there through Tuesday. Lows drop to the low 70s.
Behind the cold front, we will move into a more unsettled weather pattern for the second half of the week. That will put us back in a more typical summertime pattern. High temperatures around 90° with PM pop-up storms possible.
Meteorologist Kristy Steward
