00:00Well, we've been dealing with some tremendous heat in the Midwest, and the heat wave is
00:03escalating and peaking over the next two to three days across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
00:08But we want to look a little farther down the line, and we're going to go through a transition
00:13here where the big ridge in the East is gradually going to shrink. And we're going to see an end
00:18to
00:18the worst of the heat, thunderstorms in the transition, and then a new ridge will build
00:23over the West, which is going to lead to prolonged air quality problems for some of you in the
00:29interior West. We'll talk about that. So just kind of a mixed bag here with our forecast feed
00:34looking at the concept of trading places here. The ridge soon to ease in the East and build to the
00:40West, some of the transitions that we're going to face. So overall, here we are with the heat dome
00:45that is kind of our scene setter. This is the big storyline, the 4th of July week furnace, we're
00:52calling it here on the AccuWeather Network, with some areas dabbling near record highs. Some places
00:56like New York City at Central Park. You haven't officially been to 100 since 2012, and it's been
01:02a long stretch. Usually you see it a little more frequently than once every 10 years. I think there
01:05have been 60 days in which Central Park has hit 100 in the past between the 1860s and 2012, but
01:12not
01:12since. Well, we're going to probably do it late this week. But in the transition to a less steamy time,
01:19we're going to be dealing with the return of some thunderstorms in this transition, scattered,
01:25strong thunderstorms each afternoon this Saturday and Sunday. July 4th, the nation's 250th birthday
01:30will have some weather-related interruptions. But on the same token, the thunderstorms will offer
01:36relief from the extreme heat. So I think there will be mixed opinions with these thunderstorms moving
01:42in, and the heat will gradually then return across the West as it begins to ease in the East this
01:47weekend into next week. Now, in this transition here, I'm going to look at briefly a few of these
01:53thunderstorm risk areas, focusing mainly on the Northeast. There will also be intense
01:57thunderstorms in the Midwest this Friday and Saturday, even Thursday. But focusing on the
02:013rd and 4th of July thunderstorms, so many outdoor events in the Northeast, including in Philadelphia,
02:08where this all got started, and in other areas down a little farther south into Jamestown and
02:13Yorktown, Virginia. We're going to have some storms nearby that the best shot Saturday is north of
02:18there. Bernie Raynaud made the observation, and we have a digital video on this, that it's the 13
02:23original colonies that are hottest on July 4th and our 250th birthday. Kind of interesting. Let's get
02:29to the models, then we're going to go back to look at some of the kind of the transition from
02:33Ridge in
02:34the East to Ridge in the West. And what I wanted to show you is this 594 thickness line. Here
02:40it is,
02:40this circle here, and that begins to slide east, and it erodes away as we get into Saturday, and the
02:50ridge
02:50begins to flatten out. Here's the NAMM, another depiction of that shrinking away into the weekend,
02:58and here's the European. Strongest Thursday and Friday in the Mid-Atlantic shrinking away, and basically
03:05what is happening here is what was once a strong ridge becomes a little bit flatter. And you'll
03:12notice, look at this, we got ourselves a cold front in the transition, and that's going to be leading to
03:18severe weather. Heat waves do not end quietly. They end with strong and severe storms. So we've got
03:23concerns in the Midwest, and I also showed you the Northeast forecast for specifics there. So the
03:29shift of tails, a statistical way of looking at heat or cool. And at the departure from Norway,
03:35you can see we're cooler than average in the desert Southwest, much hotter than average in the Great
03:39Lakes in the interior Northeast as we begin. And then this shifts east for, this is valid 0Z on the
03:453rd of July, which is really midnight Greenwich. Meantime, we're looking at basically the 2nd of July
03:51in the eastern U.S. That's Thursday. Look at the heat, extreme heat. Friday, extreme heat in the
03:57mid-Atlantic, northeast, New England. Saturday, July 4th, still extreme heat in most areas of the
04:03I-95. Trimmed away, though, in the far interior. And then it begins to fade away, and you begin to
04:09see a little transition where we begin to see some yellows, nothing off the charts, but a little warm
04:14building into the interior southwest and staying very warm on, what, Sunday, July 5th, but easing.
04:22The heat will be easing a bit farther east. In the transition, we've got the Ring of Fire initially.
04:27With the concept of storms around the periphery of our Ridge of High Pressure. But into Friday and
04:34Saturday, you can see the ridge, it begins to get centered a little farther east. I know there's
04:38a little bubble high plotted over the Blue Ridge, but the core of the upper level ridge is going to
04:43be farther east. That opens the door for more thunderstorms, pushing into the interior northeast
04:47on Friday and Saturday. Saturday, you can see it's timid in the GFS, but there will be some
04:53scattered strong to severe storms. But take a look at this. The NAM, timid, but scattered intense
04:59thunderstorms over DC. And then the European, which has slightly larger coverage, but we don't want to
05:05take the specifics too literally. The messaging here is that there will be some scattered strong
05:10thunderstorms developing over the northeast and certainly over the Midwest as well on Saturday.
05:14And Sunday, we see more of this as, again, the ridge and that lid over the atmosphere is farther
05:21offshore. Now, in this transition, I'm going to go back to the graphics, then I want to show you a
05:26couple other things regarding the interior west and some of the impacts of the building heat there.
05:32But next week, it will not be as hot. Still going to be very warm and humid in the mid
05:36-Atlantic,
05:36in the southeast, in the south-central, but trending a bit cooler, still not cool, but cooler,
05:41in the Midwest and the northeast. With all that said, we've got some big fires in the interior
05:47southwest in Colorado and Utah. Now, we're going to go through a transition here. There's still some
05:53wind out there. We've got a few more days with wind. In fact, I'm going to show you this a
05:57little
05:57bit better. A very short-range model forecast of the dispersion of smoke. The black is where we have
06:04really thick and deep smoke. And the fuzzier whites are where we have lighter smoke conditions.
06:11Through Thursday, still wind leading to dangerous fire danger in many of these areas. But as we get
06:19into next week, high pressure begins to build over the interior southwest. The wind's going to decrease.
06:26This is going to serve to trap the smoke. So instead of that ventilation carrying smoke away,
06:31with strong winds leading to very volatile fire weather in the short term. So dangerous fire
06:36weather, but the smoke gets carried into the northern plains. Next week, the smoke is going
06:41to be trapped. There may not be as much active fire activity with less wind, but the smoke is going
06:46to be stifling and sticking around.
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