It has been one of Virginia’s hottest, driest summers — but a switch is about to flip

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It might seem that hot, dry weather is going to last forever, but the atmospheric pattern is shifting around to prove, once again, that when it comes to weather, nothing lasts forever.

This day, Wednesday, looks likely to be the last day of the intermittent heat wave that began about the time astronomical summer did on June 20, taking a couple days off a time or two but always bouncing back to well-above-normal temperatures for multiple days in a row. Wednesday is also expected to be the first day of several ahead with increased chances of showers and thunderstorms.

High temperatures will likely stay below 90 degrees over almost our entire region on Thursday, and remain below 90 degrees through the weekend. There will be chances of showers and thunderstorms each day. Only a slow recovery of heat is expected next week to perhaps some lower 90s, but not the upper 90s-lower 100s lower elevations of our region have experienced this week, and there will be the potential for additional cold fronts to again curb temperatures and enhance chances of rain.

Thus far, the first half of meteorological summer (which started June 1) has been among the driest and hottest on record for many locations across Virginia. In fact, it was Virginia’s driest June on record in 130 years of data — for the state as a whole, not necessarily for any given point, though it was in some places. Several locations have also had one of their hottest first halves of summer on record — it has been the hottest June 1-July 15 period on record at Roanoke and fifth hottest at Lynchburg, for a couple of examples, each with more than a century of official weather data.

Related weather stories this week:

· Roanoke soars to 103 on Monday, prior to another sizzling day on Tuesday

· Hot, dry weather brings ‘cripy’ fields and low yields to Southwest Va. farmers

The big-picture weather pattern is restructuring to focus the “heat dome” more in the western U.S. and a northwesterly flow setting up over the eastern U.S., rotating clockwise around the western U.S. high. There are also shifts in the northern latitudes in which warm air relative to normal is transferring to lower levels of the atmosphere , creating high-pressure blocking that will help force cooler air southward into the eastern U.S.

Although it is possible there may be a morning or two with really cool lows in the 40s and lower 50s, the overall temperature range for our region will be more “not that hot” than really cool. We’ll see lots of days in the 80s and lows in the upper 50s to mid 60s, pretty close to long-term normals for mid to late July. A few days might not make 80 especially in the more mountainous, western parts of our region and on any days that have greater coverage of showers.

Will the drought end? Is extreme heat over?

Two big open questions with the coming weather pattern shift are (1) whether it can ease long-term and ongoing drought significantly and (2) whether this shift will put the worst heat of summer 2024 in the rear-view mirror or if the extreme heat snaps back at us for another run in August.

The tentative answer to the first question is that, probably, for most of the region, we will end July in better shape with regard to dryness than most locations are currently.

The pattern setting up is likely to bring more low-pressure systems and cold fronts into the region that can lift and condense moisture, plus there may be a propensity to stall fronts near or not far south of us, starting with the latter part of this week into the weekend.

While the big regionwide slow soaking rain of 1 to 2 inches doesn’t look likely, frequent bouts of showers and thunderstorms, more widespread than we’ve seen most days in the past month and a half, look to occur. Eventually, this should add up to a reasonable amount of rain to most locations across our region, rather than just the spotty hit-and-miss downpours we’ve seen so far this summer.

The projection here would be that by Aug. 1, most locations in Southwest and Southside will be at least one or two shades lighter on the U.S. Drought Monitor map, but the colors probably won’t be washed away. As of last week’s map, moderate to severe drought covers most of Virginia.

2012 offers hope for less heat

The question of whether extreme heat comes back or not down the road is even more speculative. Early indications are that some semblance of this not-so-hot pattern will linger the rest of July and perhaps into early August, but the farther we get out, the fuzzier the forecast becomes.

But 2012, the derecho-shaken summer that often comes up as the last time certain recent extremely hot temperatures were reached in ou region, offers some hope on this point.

Once the June 28-July 9 heat wave broke, extreme heat never really came back except for just a brief mid to upper 90s spike on a single day a couple of times. We never had an excruciatingly hot run with lots of triple-digits lasting multiple days after early July. August was middling for average temperature, and the summer as a whole is not among the top few warmest on record despite the extraordinary heat for about 10 days many remember because they lost power with the derecho.

At this point, there is reason for optimism if you want rain and/or are tired of the most consistent extremely hot weather our region has seen in a dozen years. But summer has a lot of time left for a second act of extreme heat.

Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley.

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