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Several parts of the country have been battling a Fall heat wave across the early part of October that has seen numerous records broken. While the Northwest has been under a blanket of snow, parts of the East Coast and the South have been sweltering in 90-degree heat.
The good news, however, is that a cool front of air should be sweeping in from the Northwest into the weekend and cooling things off.
Another cold front sweeping down the East Coast should also help to bring some relief to the South. As the two cold fronts push together towards the Southeastern tip of the US, we can expect to see Autumn weather reassert itself across the country.
The first front will be sweeping down from the East Coast near Quebec, bringing cool air across Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. The Southeast is likely to see highs drop from the mid-90s to the high 70s as the weekend and next week rolls in, giving some much-needed relief to the region. The Southeast has been sweltering under 90-plus degree weather since mid-April.
The front coming from the Northwest will be earlier next week, and is part of the same Jet Stream pattern that has seen the region under a blanket of snow since the last week of September. That cool air will sweep in across the Plains, giving some break in temperature to cities like Kansas City, Dallas and Houston.
A combination of environmental factors have led to one of the hottest early Octobers on record. Primarily, the strange behavior of the Jet Stream has kept fronts of hot air hovering over the Southeast side of the country. Additionally, strong drought conditions have kept the heat feeling intense and inescapable in some parts of the Southeast.
Of course, it’s impossible to discuss the unseasonal heat without mentioning the impact that global climate change has had in the past thirty years. Scientists believe that the Southeast will likely continue to see increases in daily temperatures in the next several decades as the effects of climate change pile up.
