Here's Your Friday Night Update On Hurricane Isaias As It Approaches Florida

Hurricane warnings are up for portions of southeastern Florida as Hurricane Isaias (pronounced ees-ah-EE-ahs) traverses The Bahamas on Friday night. The hurricane's outer bands will begin to affect the Miami area during on Saturday, with conditions rapidly deteriorating Saturday night and through the day on Sunday. Most of the U.S. East Coast and the Canadian Maritimes are at risk of seeing strong winds and heavy rain from this storm through early next week.

Hurricane Isaias

Isaias is a resilient storm. After several days of struggling to develop in the eastern Caribbean Sea, the system got its act together in a hurry over Hispaniola. While the island's rough terrain typically brings tropical cyclones to a hasty end, the center of what became Isaias seemed unaffected by the terrain. The system rapidly strengthened into a hurricane on Thursday night and it's maintained intensity over the last 24 hours.

It looks interesting on satellite imagery. Radar shows an eyewall developing, but dry air on the western side of the storm won't let the eyewall fill in, precluding an eye from clearing out in the clouds. There's a large mass of convection on the eastern side of the storm, while the western side is struggling against that dry air and a bit of wind shear.

Forecast Track

The National Hurricane Center's forecast at 11:00 PM EDT on July 31, 2020, shows the hurricane dragging along Florida as a hurricane before skirting up the entire U.S. East Coast and into the Canadian Maritimes as a strong tropical storm.

Accordingly, a whole slate of watches and warnings are up for the Florida Peninsula, including a hurricane warning for coastal counties from Boca Raton, Florida, northward to the Volusia/Brevard County line (just north of Cape Canaveral). Expect these alerts to extend up the coast over the next few days.

If the storm remains on its current projected path, the storm will affect the entire coast from Miami to Halifax. The greatest threat right now appears to exist in both Florida and North Carolina, both of which could feel the strongest winds, rain, and storm surge with the closest approach of the system's core.

Forecasters expect Isaias to maintain strength and gradually weaken as it picks up speed and begins to curve up the coast. The environment around the hurricane isn't too friendly for strengthening, but it's not out of the question once the core of the storm moves over the Gulf Stream. Remember, storms can unexpectedly intensify, which is a dangerous prospect when they're this close to land.

Wind & Storm Surge

Hurricane force winds appear most likely in southeastern Florida, which could see the center make about as close of an approach as possible without actually making landfall. Tropical storm force winds are possible over a wider area, including counties that are dozens of miles inland.

The hurricane's projected path scrapes the eyewall over many dozens of miles of land; we could see entire counties go through a period of damaging winds. Widespread power outages are likely. 

The latest NHC forecast shows a potential storm surge of 2-4 feet above normal tide levels across much of eastern Florida. Their new map—which is quite useful compared to some of their old storm surge graphics—is shown above.

Rain

As usual, the threat for freshwater flooding from heavy rain is the greatest threat anyone in the path of the storm will face. The latest seven-day rainfall forecast from the Weather Prediction Center is shown above. Isaias could produce several quick inches of rain along its path, potentially leading to flash flooding. Some areas could wind up with more rain than predicted above. A track closer to land would bring higher rainfall totals for more people than a track that brings the core of the system farther away from land. 

Most of the deaths in a landfalling tropical cyclone occur as a result of flooding from heavy rain. Never cross a water-covered roadway. It's impossible to judge how deep the water is until it's too late, and it takes a surprisingly small amount of moving water to lift up a vehicle and carry it downstream.

Tornadoes

There's enough spin in the atmosphere that tornadoes are always a concern when a tropical cyclone makes landfall (or brushes land). The greatest threat for tornadoes usually exists in the right-front quadrant of the storm relative to its forward motion. Since that right-front quadrant is likely going to stay offshore, the tornado threat is a little lower. That said, some of the storm's outer bands could produce a quick tornado or two. Tropical tornadoes are fast and they can occur with little or no lead time. Always stay alert and make sure you can get to a safe spot in a hurry if needed.

[Satellite Image: NOAA]

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The Weather Channel's "COVIDCANE" Branding Is A Mockery Of This Crisis And Its Own Legacy

Any hurricane season is stressful when we have a storm aiming for the coast, but this season is particularly harrowing because of the ever-worsening coronavirus pandemic. It's not out of question that coastal communities will face evacuation orders at some point this season due to a storm's surge or inland flooding. When that happens, local officials will have to walk a tightrope to figure out how to safely handle evacuees without exposing folks already experiencing hardship to a coronavirus outbreak at evacuation centers and other gathering points for aid and supplies.

The Weather Channel, bless its heart, decided to call this conundrum COVIDCANE 2020: BRACING FOR DISASTER.

Come on.

The network recently ran a special report titled COVIDCANE 2020 and I held hope, however fleeting, that it was a one-off thing and the folks in charge would think better of this ill-advised branding opportunity.

Nope.

Watches and warnings are up in parts of Florida ahead of Hurricane Isaias. The Weather Channel's on top of it like always. But right next to their coverage tonight is that little COVIDCANE 2020 logo, hanging out on the network's graphics and chyrons like a sorry wasp caught between the screen and the window.

How many desks did COVIDCANE 2020 have to cross before it got final approval to go on television and the internet? How many folks had to give this branding nightmare the green light and no one stopped to think for one blasted minute "hey, maybe we shouldn't do this?"

I have been in that building twice. There are lots of fantastic people who work for the company. And the building has plenty of cozy meeting rooms for any number of those great folks to go over what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again.

I've criticized The Weather Channel for plenty of nonsense in the past. Their winter storm names are flawed. They've given some pretty boneheaded advice during emergency situations. One of their reporters ran around in a hurricane a few years ago like a frat guy during pledge week—I hear they even wound up changing the way they cover storms after that incident.

But this is something that's completely out of character for a network that prides itself on leading the pack for weather coverage. They're supposed to be the gold standard—weather you can always turn to!—but this escapade cracks open the vault to find an empty reserve and an intern pecking at a keyboard in the dark.

The Weather Channel didn't invent over-the-top branding during natural disasters. News organizations have been packaging flashy graphics and snazzy music for crises since they got the technology. But the company should know better. More than 150,000 people are dead from a virus in five months. We're adding tens of thousands of new cases every day. A hurricane is heading toward the worst-hit part of the country right now and goodness knows what else will form in the coming months.

This is stress on top of stress.

We all know the power of graphics, chyrons, and headlines. Advertising this as COVIDCANE 2020 cheapens the threat and makes it sound like it's just another ratings opportunity instead of a serious examination of two disasters converging in a way we haven't experienced in living memory in the United States.

Do better.

[Images: @weatherchannel on Twitter (1 & 2)]

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Get Ready To Learn How To Say "Isaias," The Atlantic Hurricane Season's Next Storm Name

This year's Atlantic hurricane season is off to a record start, giving us the most named storms we've ever recorded this early in the summer. The next name on the list for storms in the Atlantic is Isaias, which is pronounced exactly as it looks—ees-ah-EE-ahs.

Just about every meteorologist who's endeavored to teach their audiences how to say the next storm's name have been tagged by comment thread hotheads who are a-n-g-e-r-y that other languages exist, and the performative outrage is sure to spread once folks on the news start saying ees-ah-EE-ahs with every broadcast.

Admittedly, it's a bit tricky for native English speakers who aren't accustomed to the abundance of accented vowels in Romance languages like Spanish and Portuguese, but it's a quick and simple four syllables that are worth a few seconds to learn.

How'd we get here already?

We're eight names and five landfalls into the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and the peak of the season is still more than a month away. The year began with Tropical Storm Arthur in the middle of May—more than two weeks before the start of the season—and kept going with several quick storms over the following weeks.

Thankfully, most of the storms were relatively weak and not long for this world. While we're way ahead of normal in raw numbers, we're not far off par for Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE), which is the best measure of the true intensity of a hurricane season.

The record pace at which we're knocking through storm names brings some attention to the very practice of naming storms itself. The attention is that much greater now that we're about to have a slightly tough-to-pronounce name that has the added bonus of whipping up Facebook's resident curmudgeons because it's not lazily pronounced the English way (eye-ZAY-us).

Tropical cyclone names for the world's ocean basins are maintained by the World Meteorological Organization, the agency within the United Nations that coordinates global standards in meteorology. It's important for this central organization to maintain the official list of names around the world or each country (and company...cough...) could assign its own name to each storm, creating a nightmare for communication and a breeding ground for confusion.

The Atlantic Ocean has six lists of names; each list is used once every six years. The current lists were introduced back in 1979. Each list is populated with names that alternate between masculine and feminine, omitting several letters at the end of the alphabet (Q, for instance) because there just aren't that many common names that begin with those letters.

Each name is drawn from suggestions submitted by countries that border the Atlantic Ocean. Since the countries around the Atlantic predominantly speak English, Spanish, and French, we wind up with a nice mix of names—Dolly, Gonzalo, Margot—that represent the different languages of the Atlantic Basin.

While we've been using the same batch of names for decades, many of the names have been swapped out from the originals due to retirements. The WMO holds an annual meeting to determine if any of the names deserve retirement because the storm was particularly destructive or deadly. Understandably, it'd be uncomfortable (and confusing!) to talk about another Hurricane Harvey rolling into the Gulf of Mexico, so they retired that name and replaced it with Harold for the list that'll be used again in 2023.

This year's list used to feature the names Gustav, Ike, and Paloma, all of which were retired after the destructive 2008 hurricane season. The WMO replaced those names with Gonzalo, Isaias, and Paulette, respectively, but we never got around to using Isaias or Paulette in 2014 due to the below-average activity in the Atlantic that year.

It's almost certain that we're going to see the first appearance of a storm named Isaias this year, a name drawn from the many Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries that border the Atlantic. It's ees-ah-EE-ahs, not eye-ZAY-us. It's clearer when it's written properly—Isaías, with the accent—but the official name lacks the accent for ease of use in official products. (It'd take a long time to issue products if meteorologists had to hit ALT+161 on their keyboard every time they want to type the í in Isaías.)

You can see the National Hurricane Center's pronunciation guide for all the names used in the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Pacific Ocean over at the agency's tropical cyclone naming page. Most of the other names used this season are straightforward; Laura is LOOR-uh instead of LAW-ruh, but I suppose that's a fight over accents as opposed to languages, in which case y'all just gotta fight that one out.

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Two Hurricanes Could Make Landfall This Weekend: One In Texas, The Other In Hawaii

This weekend could see the rare occasion when two different hurricanes make landfall in the United States just one day apart. The latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center predicts that Tropical Storm Hanna will reach hurricane strength before coming ashore near Corpus Christi, Texas, on Saturday, followed by the potential landfall of Hurricane Douglas on the Hawaiian Islands on Sunday.

Texas: Tropical Storm Hanna

Hanna is doing its best to take full advantage of the environment over the Gulf of Mexico. The storm has a mean look to it on satellite imagery—that's a technical analysis, of course—with a broad curvature, decent upper-level outflow, and deep convection around the center of the system. Pretty much the only good thing we've seen so far is that the storm's ingested a bit of dry air into its core, slowing down the rate of organization and strengthening.

Even so, given its current organization and the favorable environment ahead of it, the NHC expects the system to make a run at hurricane strength before making landfall on Saturday afternoon.

Flooding Rains

The big story with Tropical Storm Hanna is the flooding. Some areas could see up to a foot of rain from this storm over the next couple of days. It won't take much heavy rain to produce flash flooding, especially in arid areas where the ground isn't capable of absorbing water as efficiently. 

A risk for flash flooding exists along Hanna's general track, where the Weather Prediction Center expects a broad swath of 4-8 inches of rain from the coast into northern Mexico.

Freshwater flooding is the leading cause of death from a landfalling tropical system in the United States. Inevitably, someone will think they're invincible or that they've got impeccable judgement and they'll try to drive across a flooded roadway only to get stuck and washed downstream. It's impossible to judge how deep the water is before you're in it and it's too late. It takes a surprisingly small amount of water to lift a vehicle and carry it downstream. 

Wind and Surge

Current forecasts bring the center of the storm ashore near Corpus Christi on Saturday afternoon. Normally, this is the part where I'd stress that the forecast only applies to the center of the storm, and the wind, rain, and storm surge can extend hundreds of miles from the eye. That'll certainly be the case with Hanna's flooding rains. However, this is a compact storm with a compact core of strong winds. It very much matters where it makes landfall; a few miles north or south could mean the difference between a breezy day and a solid thump in a city that's home to more than 300,000 people.

There's little difference between a 70 MPH tropical storm and a 75 MPH hurricane, so its title doesn't matter much but to folks who love technicalities. Wind damage is likely where the core of the storm comes ashore, but tropical storm force winds extend several dozen miles away from the center and it won't take much wind to knock down trees and power lines when the soil is wet.

Tornadoes

A risk for tornadoes exists with any landfalling tropical cyclone. The greatest threat for tornadoes lies in the right-front quadrant of the storm relative to its forward motion—in Hanna's case, that's going to be the northern side of the storm.

Tropical tornadoes happen fast and, as a result, they often touch down with reduced lead time. They're more common in the rain bands than the shield of rain around the center of the storm itself, but they can occur close to the center if an embedded thunderstorm can tap into enough spin in the atmosphere.

Hawaii: Hurricane Douglas

Not even 24 hours after Hanna hits Texas, we'll have to look a few thousand miles west and watch nervously as Hurricane Douglas closes in on Hawaii. A hurricane watch is in effect for the Big Island, Maui, Lanai, Molokai, and Kahoolawe, which includes the cities of Hilo and Kahului. It's likely watches will be extended west toward Honolulu over the next day or so.

Douglas strengthened into a major hurricane this week. It's going to begin a slow but steady weakening trend over the next few days as it traverses cooler waters near Hawaii. Previous storms that approached Hawaii in recent years fell apart in dramatic fashion as they approached the Big Island. Forecasters expect Douglas to weaken slowly, though, due to low vertical wind shear trying to tear the storm apart.

The latest forecast shows the storm traversing the length of the island chain. Conditions will rapidly deteriorate on the Big Island on Saturday evening, worsening across the islands from east to west through the day on Sunday.

Wind

Douglas, like Hanna, has a relatively small core of strong winds around the eye of the storm. However, Douglas' predicted track could expose most population centers in the state to a period of dangerous conditions this weekend. A small wobble in either direction could have huge implications in who sees the worst weather.

Hurricane conditions are possible on portions of the Big Island and Maui if the center tracks very close to land. This kind of wind will lead to widespread tree damage, lengthy power outages, and structural damage. Falling tree limbs are a serious danger to motorists, pedestrians, and homes; if you live in Hawaii and you're in the path of the storm, stay away from rooms where large trees or limbs could fall through the roof or walls.

Heavy Rain

Flash flooding is a serious hazard with Hurricane Douglas. The mountainous terrain allows heavy downpours to turn into flash floods and mudslides in a hurry. The Central Pacific Hurricane Center warns that 6 to 10 inches of rain are possible, with total amounts of more than a foot of rain possible along the windward side of high terrain. 

[Satellite: NOAA]

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Two Atlantic Storms Heading For Land; Flooding Threat Growing On Gulf Coast

A tropical storm warning is in effect for a portion of the Texas coast as a tropical depression drifts west across the Gulf of Mexico. The system, regardless of its status at landfall, could bring heavy rain and rough seas to coastal communities from Brownsville to Mobile. While that's the immediate concern, there's a strengthening tropical storm far out in the Atlantic that we'll need to keep an eye on as it moves into the Caribbean later this week.

Tropical Depression Eight

Satellite imagery and Hurricane Hunter aircraft found that the tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico developed into a tropical depression on Wednesday afternoon. It's struggled to maintain its composure a bit over the last 24 hours, but it's starting to look healthier on satellite imagery today and it might make it to tropical storm strength before too long.

The NHC's forecast turns this into Tropical Storm Hanna by Friday, bringing it into the coast on Saturday with maximum winds near 60 MPH. That's enough to bring down trees and power lines, especially where the soil is loose from the heavy rain. A tropical storm warning is in effect for the coast and inland counties around where the system/future-Hanna is forecast to make landfall, including Corpus Christi and Victoria.

Heavy rain is the greatest threat from this system no matter what it's called by the time it reaches land. Some communities could see up to half a foot of rain if they're caught beneath training bands of heavy showers and thunderstorms. The greatest rainfall totals are likely near where the system makes landfall this weekend, but rain associated with the system will bring the potential for flooding as far up the coast as Mobile, Alabama, where forecasters expect several inches of rain through next week.

Tropical Storm Gonzalo

Gonzalo is our seventh named storm of the year, setting yet another record for the most named storms so early in the season. We typically don't see our first hurricane until mid-August and it usually takes until the peak of hurricane season to reach our seventh named storm. (If the tropical depression in the Gulf becomes Tropical Storm Hanna, that will set another record for the earliest "H" storm.)

This is the first tropical system we've seen form out in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, an area between the Caribbean and the west coast of Africa known as the "main development region," or MDR. With the exception of Tropical Storm Cristobal, every other storm we've seen in the Atlantic in 2020 developed from non-tropical origins.

The tropical storm might undergo a period of intensification soon and the National Hurricane Center's forecast calls for Gonzalo to reach hurricane strength by Thursday. A hurricane watch and a tropical storm watch are in effect for the Windward Islands in the path of the storm. This is a tiny storm right now; the 5PM advisory found its tropical storm force winds only extended about 25 miles from the center of the storm. Gonzalo's precise track will determine which islands see the worst conditions, especially if the storm remains compact as it is now.

Forecasters expect Gonzalo to continue into the Caribbean on a general weakening trend through the weekend. It's a bit of an open question right now whether the storm will completely degenerate once it reaches the Caribbean or continue to hang on as it treks west. If it hangs on, there's a chance it could redevelop in the western Caribbean this weekend or early next week.

[Satellite Image: College of DuPage]

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July's Memorable Heat Wave Will Continue With Dangerous Heat in Midwest, Mid-Atlantic

The relentless heat and humidity that's bathed the United States since the end of last month will keep going straight through next week as temperatures push the triple-digit mark in the nation's capital. The above-normal sultriness looks like it'll continue into August if the latest monthly outlooks come to pass.

Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings are in effect across much of the Plains and Midwest on Saturday as the heat and humidity reaches its apex across the region. The heat index could reach 105-110°F as far north as Minneapolis on Saturday afternoon, potentially leading to heat-related injuries and illnesses in a hurry without proper protection.

The heat will shift east between Sunday and Tuesday, pushing high temperatures close to 100°F in the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Northeast.

Here's the National Weather Service's forecast high temperatures between Saturday and Tuesday:

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

The latest uptick in temperatures is hardly a welcome change right now. If you live in one of the comfortable corners of the country where you haven't broken a sweat just looking out the window, you don't realize just how hot it's been this month.

The temperature reached 121°F in Palm Springs, California, on July 12, tying the second-hottest temperature on record there. The temperature in Phoenix rose above 90°F on July 8 and didn't fall below 90°F until the morning of July 15°F, hitting triple digits each afternoon in between, maxing out at 116°F on July 12.

A humid heat plagued the southern Plains for much of last week. The dew point reached 80°F in Norman, Oklahoma, for the first time since the Oklahoma Mesonet began taking readings there—such a deep slog of moisture is disgusting even by tropical standards, let alone on the Plains. 

Temperatures were relentlessly gross back east. Washington D.C. came close to breaking its longest recorded streak of high temperatures at or above 90°F. National Airport recorded a high of ≥90°F for 20 straight days between June 26 and July 16, falling one day short of tying the record set in August 1980 and August 1988.

The Climate Prediction Center's latest outlook says all indications point toward abnormally warm temperatures to continue through the end of the month, especially across the northern half of the country. Not only is this kind of pattern brutal on people and groups sensitive to relentless heat and humidity—folks who are sick, the elderly, low-income folks who can't afford air conditioning or fans—but it's ripe for severe thunderstorms, which can add insult to injury during a nasty spell of heat.

Persistent heat can lead to severe weather like we're seeing in the Upper Midwest tonight. Ridges of high pressure that lead to these prolonged heat waves can foster severe squall lines that produce intense wind gusts, leaving behind widespread wind damage over a path that can stretch hundreds of miles long.

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Here's The Latest On Tropical Storm Fay As It Heads Toward The Northeast

Tropical storm warnings are up for coastal communities in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut as Tropical Storm Fay moves toward the area on Friday. Heavy rain could lead to flooding concerns along the storm's path, with heavy rain falling over many of the same areas that got drenched a few days ago.

Tropical Storm Fay formed off the coast of North Carolina on Thursday afternoon from a long-watched disturbance that began as a group of thunderstorms over the Deep South late last week. The tropical storm is still disheveled and lopsided, but it's getting its act together and it'll look a little better as it heads up the coast over the next 36 hours.

Thursday evening's advisory from the National Hurricane Center shows Fay hanging around off of Virginia Beach, steadily paralleling the coast until it makes landfall on Long Island overnight Friday into Saturday morning. The center of the storm doesn't matter all that much at the moment—what matters is the gusty winds and flash flooding that will accompany the storm as it scrapes the coast and moves inland.

Rain

Heavy rain will follow the storm's track until it dissipates in eastern Canada this weekend. The heaviest rain is likely in the Delmarva Peninsula and New Jersey, falling over the same areas that saw a tremendous amount of rain from stalled thunderstorms just a few days ago. It won't take much persistent heavy rain to cause flooding issues in these areas.

This storm will cover plenty of densely populated metro areas that could easily experience urban and street flooding. Don't drive across a flooded roadway or attempt to walk through standing water. It's impossible to tell how deep the water is before it's too late. It takes a surprisingly low amount of water to engulf or sweep away a vehicle or pedestrian.

Wind

Wind often takes a backseat to rain in landfalling systems, but it matters a great deal if your power goes out or a tree falls through your roof. Gusty winds will lead to pockets of power outages, especially where the soil is loose from recent rains. It's a little late to head to the store at this point, but go around the house and collect flashlights and batteries so you can feel your way around if you go into Friday night without power.

Tornadoes

Tornadoes are always a threat with landfalling tropical systems. There's enough spin in the atmosphere in a tropical cyclone that heavy showers and thunderstorms in the rain bands can produce quick tornadoes. Tornadoes are most likely to the right of the center of circulation; for Tropical Storm Fay, that's the eastern side of the storm. The greatest tornado threat on Friday and Saturday will exist along and east of I-95 from New York City northward.

Tropical tornadoes tend to be smaller and weaker than you'd expect to see in Oklahoma, but even the smallest tornado is dangerous if it hits your home. Pay close attention to warnings and be prepared to act quickly, since these tornadoes form quickly and lead time is often just a couple of minutes.

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A Tropical System Could Develop Off The Mid-Atlantic Coast This Week

A disturbance just off the Carolina coast has a high chance of developing into a tropical system over the next day or so as it moves north. Regardless of the system’s development, gusty winds and heavy rain are possible across coastal communities from North Carolina to New England through the end of the week.

Conditions over the western Atlantic Ocean are conducive for the system to develop. The National Hurricane Center gives the system a high—70 percent—chance of development in the next few days. The system’s proximity to the coast wouldn’t give it much time or space to strengthen, though, so the window for development is relatively short.

Given its location and short window, this one of those cases where the resulting storm would be relatively weak; if that remains the case, there won’t be too much of a difference between a disorganized disturbance and a system that earns a name and advisories from the National Hurricane Center. The effects will still be the same, with gusty winds and bursts of heavy rain that could lead to occasional flash flooding in some spots.

North Carolina’s Outer Banks could see 3 to 4 inches of rain from the system over the next few days. A couple of inches of rain are possible along the track of the system as it moves into New England through the weekend. It's not a tremendous amount by any means, but a heavy tropical downpour that lasts a little while can lead to isolated flooding issues. This could be a greater issue in the Philly metro area where the ground is saturated from heavy storms the other day.

The disturbance began life as a complex of thunderstorms over the Deep South late last week. Without any large-scale patterns to mix up the atmosphere and steer things along, the remnant trough has slowly drifted across the southeast toward North Carolina for the last few days, bringing heavy showers and thunderstorms to communities along its path.

If the disturbance develops into a tropical storm, the next name on 2020’s list for the Atlantic basin is Fay. This would be the sixth named storm so far this season, again setting a record for the most named storms we’ve seen so early in the year. This year’s hurricane season began on May 16 with Tropical Storm Arthur, continuing with a series of small and weak storms that developed over the following couple of weeks.

[Satellite: NOAA]

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This Weekend's Weather Is Perfect To Just Stay Home

We're going to see see absolutely beautiful weather to stay home this long weekend. Whether it’s storms in the northern Plains or hot and humid conditions down by the Gulf, it all matters just about the same since we shouldn’t be out anywhere right now.

Everyone but the Pacific Northwest will see a dose of summertime heat this weekend. A big dome of high pressure covering the middle of the country will allow a muggy heat to build from the Rockies to the Atlantic.

An isolated storm or two could bring a welcome relief from the rain. Occasional pop-up thunderstorms are possible in that muggy airmass where updrafts get going fast enough to break through the cap. Some of the storms in the northern Plains and northern Gulf Coast could produce localized flooding.

Royal blue skies will greet the West Coast this weekend, where typical Pacific mildness will greet most beaches from Washington to California. Many southern California beaches and beach parking facilities across the state are closed, of course. Temperatures will get quite toasty in desert areas and California’s Central Valley, but it’ll be tranquil otherwise.

Source: The COVID Tracking Project

Austin could notch its first triple-digit reading of the year on Saturday. The greatest heat will build over Texas on July 4, where confirmed coronavirus cases are increasing exponentially and Houston-area intensive care units reach capacity as a result of the surge in infections. There’s no real reason for any of us to gather with friends or family or go on vacations or out to eat this weekend since slowing the spread of the virus is the only way we’re ever going to return to normal in the next couple of years. Temperatures will reach the low 100s across most of the state on Saturday. Try to stay cool!

Muggy is pretty much the baseline in Florida. You break out into a sweat as soon as you walk outside and it just doesn’t relent. The thick, putrid air is especially tough right now since Florida's lax gathering and travel restrictions—and even more casual relationship with wearing masks—has allowed coronavirus cases to soar and put serious strain on hospitals across the state. 

An isolated instance of flash flooding is possible on the northern Gulf Coast and northern Florida this weekend in any of the thunderstorms that pop up. Storms will have a deep reservoir of atmospheric moisture to tap into and some could produce rainfall rates heavy enough to overwhelm drainage systems.

Severe thunderstorms are possible across much of the Plains and portions of the northern Rockies and Upper Midwest this weekend. That shouldn't put a damper on any big cookouts, though, since large family gatherings and parties continue to be major spreader events that are seeding accelerated outbreaks in communities across the country. Severe storms could produce damaging wind gusts in excess of 60 MPH, hail the size of quarters or larger, and possibly an isolated tornado or two.

Keep safe!

[Satellite: NOAA]

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