JAMESTOWN – A few scattered showers and thunderstorms will take us through this Wednesday, before the hottest air so far this season makes an appearance for the July 4th holiday weekend.
A system moving through the region is reasonable for the rain drops we’re wiping away today. Some of those showers and storms could contain some heavy rainfall at times as well, which would be good news for those areas that need some beneficial rainfall.
Because of the expanse of the system, rain showers will likely linger into the morning hours of Thursday, but we should clear out through the afternoon, with some partial sunshine making an appearance before we wrap up the day.
As we’ve been advertising, a significant heat ridge will develop across the Northeast this weekend and bring the East Coast some of the hottest weather so far this summer, including Western New York.
The way we see it based on the newest data, temperatures over the weekend into early next week will spike into the lower to mid 90s. A couple of those numbers you see on the forecast panels in the 7 Day might even be a bit underdone, as we’re currently trending with a solution that’s favoring “cooler”, used figuratively, temperatures.
This heat wave will likely cause some rewrites in the history book. The record high for Saturday in the city of Jamestown is 91, set in 1991, Sunday’s record is 90, set in 1982, and Monday’s is 88, set in 1989 (official weather observations are taken at the Jamestown/Chautauqua County Airport located north of the city, which is were all the records are kept). We will likely either tie or bust each of those records, as we go through this wave of of impressive heat.
No matter which way we splice it, we’re going to have to contend with oppressive amounts of humidity. Dew point values, which is a measure of the moisture content in the atmosphere, will be running in the lower to mid 70s through this several day stretch, making it feel much more hotter.
With this amount of moisture in the air, we could easily see Feel Like temperatures in the upper 90s to the lower 100s, making this dangerous to those out in the heat for excessive periods of time. The National Weather Service has already raised the flags that Heat Advisories and or Excessive Heat Warnings will likely need to be issued for this event.
