ROANOKE, Va. – The heat continues to build following a beautiful holiday weekend.
As high pressure lingers over the Eastern U.S., we’ll feel the heat and humidity that’s commonplace for early summer.
Highs Tuesday reach the upper 80s and lower 90s outside of the mountains Tuesday afternoon.
Along the escarpment of the Blue Ridge is where we could see a few stray downpours, solely due to the heat, humidity and rising air along the mountains.
That’s also a possibility Wednesday, when temperatures reach maybe a degree or two higher than Tuesday.
Thursday will be quite hot.
At this point, however, we’ll be tracking a front to the west that will have already produced severe weather in other parts of the country. While the exact timing will continue to be ironed out, it appears as though any threat for severe weather here will be during the late day/evening hours.
Localized wind damage and/or hail appear to be the main threats. Upon first glance, the threat for tornadoes (and the overall threat for severe weather) looks higher as you get toward the Delmarva Peninsula, but we’ll keep you posted nonetheless.
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Following the passage of this front, temperatures and humidity levels will back off significantly.
This makes for a comfortable weekend with morning lows in the 50s and afternoon highs in the 70s and lower 80s.
At the same time, we’ll be keeping an eye on a potential tropical system.
Hurricane Agatha made landfall on the western side of Mexico Monday. As its energy and moisture cross into the Atlantic, the National Hurricane Center has pegged a 60% chance of tropical development within the next five days.
Hurricane season begins Wednesday, and it is forecast to be an active one according to experts at Colorado State University, North Carolina State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.