Heat Looms Coast To Coast, But Especially In The West

Midsummer flowers, including day lilies, hollyhocks and
astilbe, enjoy a refreshingly cool start to the day today
in St. Albans, Vermont. Humidity is set to return
Wednesday for what looks like an extended stay 

 I have to say Monday was my version of a perfect summer day in Vermont. 

Warmish, but by no means hot, humidity was perfectly reasonable, a sunny sky was dotted by a few pretty clouds and a soft breeze blew around lovely scents of flowers and forests, and kept the bugs at bay. 

After a comfortably cool dawn, we have another gorgeous one on the way today. Then the humidity returns. Probably for an extended stay. 

The pattern in the coming days is a lot like what has long been predicted for the summer. 

Heat will be concentrated on the West Coast and Intermountain West, and more or less along the East Coast. Nobody, really anywhere in the nation will experience truly cool weather, unless you include Alaska, of course. 

The weather pattern in the coming weeks might or might not hold for the rest of the summer. But long range forecasts call for warm to hot weather lasting for quite awhile, even if a few brief cool breaks sneak their way into New England every once in while.

 At least for now, the stronger of the two heat domes is in the West. Here in the Northeast, it will definitely be warm and humid, but at least in the immediate future, we in Vermont will escape the true torrid heat, like the kind we suffered through in mid-June. 

Weak weather fronts will keep cutting off the hottest, most humid air at the pass, keeping it mostly south of Vermont. There won't be much oomph from Canada, so those fronts won't exactly push in the refreshing air, either. 

So, it'll be mostly highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s, rather humid, with chances for showers or thunderstorms at times for at least the next week in Vermont.  You might have to water the garden, though. Most of the rain looks scattered and not super impressively heavy, except in local thunderstorms that won't cover much area. 

WESTERN HEAT

While much of the nation will be hot, even dangerously hot, the real epicenter of the heat this week is in the West.

Record highs will surely be broken in what is expected to be a long lasting hot spell.

Sacramento is forecast to endure five consecutive days of temperatures at or above 109 degrees. Previously, they've never had more than three consecutive days such days there, so if the forecast holds, that will be an impressive record. 

Redding, California at last report, was expecting a high of 117 by later in the week. That city's all time record high is 118 degrees, so that will be close. 

As the Washington Post tells us, here's the expected daily  highs this week, today through Sunday in Death Valley: 122, 125, 127,128,128 and 129.

The hottest reliably measured temperature on record in Death Valley is 130 degrees. A 134 degree reading measured there in 1913, but that mark is considered unreliable and suspect.  

The heat wave is expected to poke up into the Pacific Northwest, where Portland, Oregon expects a high of 101 degrees this coming Saturday. 

The extreme heat and dry conditions are raising the risks of wildfires, which of course are even harder to control when firefighters are dealing with temperatures in the 100s and 110s. 

This kind of thing is consistent with climate change. There's heat waves every summer, of course. But the trend is for longer, more intense hot spells, and the western heat coming up seems like an example of this. 

It's only early July. We'll probably be dealing with heat waves right through Labor Day, so buckle up.