Another Enormous Heat Wave Building, Texas To Canadian Arctic. Vermont Stays Cool

While  most of the Northern Hemisphere has been wilting 
under intense heat waves so far this summer, they've 
been missing us in Vermont. Flowers on my back
shown here enjoying a sunny but temperate 
Fourth of July.

 Summer isn't even half over, but the northern hemisphere has had one epic heat wave after another. 

Just in the past week, places as diverse as Tokyo and Oslo have had brutal hot spells. There seems to be very few places left that have not had a record heat wave this summer. Vermont, the rest of New England and southeastern Canada are in the small minority of lucky places that have not yet had record heat this summer. 

No big hot spells are in the offing here through at least the third week in July it seems, but elsewhere, new big heat waves are coming fast and furiously. 

This next one is going to hit large portions of central North America. In some places, the heat will be particularly dangerous because it will last many days with no relief.  In the central and southern Plains, the extreme heat could last up to two weeks.

Now, this area is normally hot in the summer anyway, but this will heat wave will be quite draining. 

For instance, today will probably be the "coldest" out of at least the next ten days in Oklahoma City. The forecast high there today is 100 degrees. From here on out daily high temperatures through at least early next week there will be close to 105 degrees. Normal highs this time of year in Oklahoma City are in the low 90s. 

Heat advisories are up for a vast portion of the nation's middle today, and I expect more heat advisories and warnings out there daily for the foreseeable future.

The heat in the middle of the nation will last so long because a "heat dome," which is a large area of hot high pressure, seems not want to move for a long time.  It'll just sit there, creating day after day of intense heat, and possibly causing a "flash drought" in the process. 

Air under heat domes tends to sink, which is exactly the opposite of what you want to produce summertime showers and thunderstorms. The only hope for rain in this heat zone is if any weak disturbances managed to briefly infiltrate it.

The hot weather picks up where June left off.  Overall we saw about three times the number of daily record highs in the U.S compared to record lows. 

Here in Vermont, we're well north and  east of the heat dome, which sets up a pretty steady flow of air from the west and northwest. That'll ensure a series of cold fronts will come through over the next week or two, keeping humidity and check and temperatures near or a little cooler than normal.

Since the air is from a drier region and not the south, rainfall here in Vermont does not look like it'll be all that impressive, but we will get our share of showers from time to time. The next shot at any rain is tomorrow.

I almost forgot to mention another concerning area of at least relative heat in North America. Far northern Canada and areas of the high Arctic adjacent to Canada are experiencing odd warmth for the region. That northern heat, like the hot stuff in the U.S. southern Plains is expected to last a long time. 

Places like Inuvik way up in Canada's Northwest Territories, is experiencing a week long spell of high temperatures in the mid to upper 80s. Normal highs there are about 60 degrees this time of year. The heat is expected to spread into Nunavut later in the week. That's in an Arctic region west of Greenland. 

The heat is causing concern about sea ice in the Arctic. It could melt even more than it has in recent summers, which is a lot. The hot conditions could also set off some high latitude wildfires. Those are bad, of course, for many reasons.  The fires lay down soot on Arctic ice and on Greenland, which can cause ice to melt faster in the summer.

Plus the fires add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which is not good for climate change. And, with the northwest flow continuing here in New England, smoke from up there could easily cause smoky or hazy skies and elevated pollution levels here.