The summer heat got off to a slow start! Most of May and June were cooler than normal. In fact, we've only seen four 90° days so far this season! Sounds hot, right? Think again! last summer we already had a whopping nine 90° days by this point in the year, which included a 90° day in April!
In total last year, we saw a whopping 45 days where the temperature met or exceeded 90°!
The summer heat may be off to a slower start this year, but Mother Nature is making up for lost time, as we will see a series of 90° days this week, and even some 100° days.
What is causing this heat? It's a strong heat dome, which essentially is a large ridge of high pressure in the upper atmosphere. High pressure causes sinking air, and that sinking air compresses and warms as it makes contact with the ground. That same sinking air also suppresses cloud and rain development, hence why the next few days will be so sunny!
The million dollar question is when will we cool down? and will this be a short term heat wave, or long term? The answer is we don't cool down anytime soon, and this unusually hot weather will continue into July. This is a look at the Climate Prediction Center's 10 day outlook, which takes us into July 2nd!
The bottom line is don't expect cooler weather anytime soon!
