Hot summer is here to stay

By Allison Marlow
Managing Editor
allison@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 6/24/22

Mobile and Baldwin counties are expected to break their all-time temperature highs this week.Meteorologists said the mercury may easily skyrocket past the record temperature of 103 degrees set in …

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Hot summer is here to stay

Posted

Mobile and Baldwin counties are expected to break their all-time temperature highs this week.

Meteorologists said the mercury may easily skyrocket past the record temperature of 103 degrees set in Mobile on June 4, 2011.

Triple digits are expected across the region through at least Saturday.

"Only along the coast is it a little better but not really," said Jason Beaman, a meteorologist with the National Weather

Service in Mobile. "The air temperature along the water will be in the upper 90s, but they will also have higher humidity, so the heat index is still going to be rough, at least 105 to 110 degrees.

"Any way you slice it, it is going to be very hot. People really need to take it easy out there," he said.

The sweltering heat is due to an unusually strong and persistent area of upper-level high pressure that is stuck over the central and south-central part of the nation. The pressure settled in after the jet stream moved far into northern Canada, allowing the pressure room to build.

As the hot and dry weather continues below it, those factors feed into the atmosphere and create a cycle that keeps the region even hotter and drier, reinforcing the high pressure.

Beaman said long-range forecasts see some weakening of the high-pressure system when the jet stream begins to dip back into the Great Lakes region next week. That is a move that would make the Gulf Coast a little cooler, relatively speaking.

"We will still probably have lows in the mid-90s. It is definitely still going to feel like summer," Beaman said.

As the high pressure moves to the west, so will the temperatures. Travelers should be aware that states west of the Gulf Coast, into

Texas and California, can expect to move into triple digits.

"The heat is going to go somewhere," Beaman said.

As summer continues, the thermometer may not cross the 100-degree mark, but it will certainly feel like it has. The heat index measures what the air feels like to the human body, regardless of the actual air temperature.

Even with lower temperatures, high amounts of humidity, common to Southern summers, will push the heat index into the 100s next week and beyond.

"Regardless of the temperature we are still talking about," Beaman said, "days that will feel well over 100 degrees."