Eastern U.S. to endure record-breaking heat wave this week

The spring of intense heat rolls on this week as a significant ridge of high pressure building over the eastern United States cranks up summer-like temperatures across the region.

Long spells of bright sunshine will help boost readings from the upper 80s to mid-90s at times.

The most widespread heat will arrive on Wednesday, which is when we'll see toasty temperatures stretch as far north as New York. Readings could even climb to near 80 degrees up in Boston and Albany.

We'll watch the ridge pull back a bit heading into the latter half of the week, focusing the summer-like air mass over the southeastern states. Long stretches of temperatures well above seasonal will blanket everyone from central Florida to southern Virginia during this heat wave.

This upcoming stretch will feature the warmest temperatures we've seen since early last autumn. Over the past 60 days, daytime highs in the 90s have remained relegated to portions of Florida and pockets of coastal Georgia and South Carolina.

Quite a few heat records may fall in the coming days.

According to the National Weather Service's latest forecast, 133 record highs and 262 record warm low temperatures are at risk of falling between Tuesday afternoon and Sunday morning.

This extended period of hot and dry weather is bad news for a region dealing with ever-worsening drought.

Last Tuesday's update of the United States Drought Monitor found that drought covered nearly 94% of the southeastern states, with one-third of the region enduring extreme or exceptional drought conditions. We can expect these numbers to look even worse in the next couple of weekly updates.

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