The Pittsburgh area could get spoiled by the weather conditions this week

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- We could get spoiled with nice weather this week, but rain is still needed throughout the area.

Any Alert Days Ahead? None

Aware: We continue to see days getting shorter (yes it happens every year). Tomorrow will be the last 8:00 p.m. or later sunset of the year.

We may be looking at summer's last stand this week with a slew of 90-degree days being possible. I have us close to 90 degrees today.  I have Pittsburgh hitting 88° for today's high.  There's a chance we hit 90 today.

If we don't do it today, there's a better chance for hitting the 90-degree mark on both Tuesday and Wednesday.  I have Pittsburgh at 90° for the high on Tuesday.  I have us hitting 92° on Wednesday for the high ahead of rain and storm chances for the late afternoon into the evening. We stay hotter than the seasonal average for the entire work week with highs in the mid to upper 90s on Thursday.  I have us hitting 90° again on Friday before we cool down for the weekend.

We don't have too many chances for seeing highs hitting the 90-degree mark this year.  Over the past thirty years (well 1990 - 2020) we have averaged 10 90° days a year.  Just one day though after the end of August. We are already playing with house money this year; having seen nineteen 90° days so far.  This is the most 90° days since 2012 (20).  By the end of the week, we will probably be looking at having the most since 2002 (24). It has been impressively hot.

With the string of 90-degree days, the lack of rain is having a larger-than-normal impact on our region.  Right now the brunt of our lack of rain is being felt the most by area farmers.  There are ways that farmers can lessen the impact of the lack of rain and high evapotranspiration rates that continue to dry out area crops.  The main way is through irrigation which costs additional money along with draining the water table at a faster rate. If heading out to a local farm you may notice the impact yourself if you are observant.  We may not see many corn mazes for the fall season and pumpkins may not be as plentiful and will probably cost more due to the lack of rain. If we don't get significant rain over the next month, drought conditions will start to be felt by people outside of just farmers. Communities may soon begin to ask residents to cut back on water consumption.

When it comes to rain, we will have a couple of rain chances this week with the first happening this morning.

The best chance for this rain will come for places like Venango County and Clarion.

If you miss out on rain today our next rain chance comes Wednesday afternoon to overnight on Thursday morning.  We will have one more chance for rain this week on Saturday.

Any little bit of rain will be helpful and overall we may see a half inch to a full inch of rain on average across our area over the next week.

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