Heat dome out west Next week!

Surface chart and radar and satellite.

The warm front has lifted through, and the cold front is moving south out of Canada. The front is slowing and is in the process of stalling. Radar is showing isolated rain showers over the region; this is especially true over southern Pennsylvania near the boundary. There will be the chance for few scattered afternoon and evening thundershowers closer to that boundary.

The cold front looks to settle to our south over the weekend, allowing for mostly dry, warm conditions. But it will feel pleasantly warm both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday there is a chance for a few showers and or thunderstorms across southern Pennsylvania into New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware, with the rest of the region staying generally dry.   Sunday will feature clearing leading to a mostly sunny day. Sunday is looking to be dry across the entire region. The front is slowing and is in the process of stalling. Radar is showing isolated rain showers over the region; this is especially true over southern Pennsylvania near the boundary. 

The SPC has a Marginal Risk for severe weather across southern New York State, Pennsylvania, and the Middle Atlantic. 

 

Tomorrow there is a Marginal Risk over the same general area. 

The pattern is adjusting as high pressure starts to build a ridge out of the Southwest.  This high-pressure ridge is going to build a giant heat dome over the Rockies into the Plains and will extend well into western and central Canada.  As the heat dome builds into the northern Plains this weekend, the extreme heat much like what we saw last week will build under the dome. As the dome continues to strengthen and build, the heat will expand eastward starting around Tuesday.  Wednesday and Thursday will be very warm and humid. But it won’t be near as hot as we were last week.

Instead of breaking down later next week, the heat dome is expected to retrograde back west and restrengthen over the Plains. This overall pattern looks to persist through much of the remainder of July. The dome will start to shift west on Friday; then over the weekend, cooler and drier air is going to drop into the Northeast and Middle Atlantic. The heat ridge pulling back west will be partly to do with a tropical system that looks to form west of Mexico and Baha California. 

As we saw last week, we’re going to see Shortwave pieces of energy become ridge riders. These are the severe thunderstorms that develop along the northern edge of the heat dome due to the instability. This will likely start on Monday. The Northeast will be on the edge of the dome.  Several mesoscale convective systems (MCS) will be a concern. The hot, muggy air over the region, will allow these MCS to be a possible issue for Tuesday through Thursday.  While it too soon to know where thunderstorm complexes will develop and setup. The heat ridge will be close enough that some of these storms could come out of the Ohio Valley and possibility make it into Western Pennsylvania and maybe Western New York State. The risk for these storms won’t be near as high as it was last week.  For now, the potential is there, we will just have to wait to get closer for more details.

This general pattern looks to stay with us for July and likely into August.  There will be a ridge out west and an overall trough over the east. This will keep the northeast and Middle Atlantic Region fairly active, with seasonal to at times below average temperatures.

  

Have a great weekend!