We’ve used a lot of words in Cardinal News recently describing heat, stickiness and storminess.
It’s time for a break from that — and not just from writing about it.
A significant pattern change is afoot that will bring about several days’ retreat from the sticky summer weather we’ve been experiencing lately. Heat dome high pressure is going to relocate westward, its clockwise flowing turning northwest to southeast, bringing cooler, drier air down from Canada over the central and eastern U.S.
A couple mornings dipping below 60 degrees and failing to reach 80 in much of our Southwest and Southside Virginia region might even stir a hint of pumpkin spice instincts somewhere in all the souls who are anxiously awaiting autumn. (Or how about a Fall Classic sort of feel for that Saturday evening baseball game between the Braves and Reds at Bristol Motor Speedway? If we can shoo the showers away in time.)
But let’s be clear here: This is not the start of an early fall. It will get hot again in August — whether it gets as hot and humid as we’ve seen the past several days or in the even more sizzling days of late June remains to be seen.
There are already signs that hot high pressure begins building back eastward by the second week of August. But the eastern tier of states will be farthest from that, so we may squeeze out a few more days of “not so hot” after this cooler break before it gets genuinely hot again.
But we said we weren’t going to write about it being hot.
The strong cold front will approach our region from the northwest, increasing the chance of showers and storms on Thursday and Friday as it lifts and condenses the abundant moisture in our air.
Once it pushes through, cooler, drier air will filter in from the northwest, and eventually more from the north and northeast, as high pressure builds in from the north over and around the Appalachian Mountains.
As you know, it can be a little difficult to entirely push away the moisture this time of year, and there might be some lingering showers into Saturday especially over the southwest corner of the state. Hopefully this gets shoved away before the first pitch Saturday night at Bristol, but even if there is a little rain, it will probably be play-through-it level sprinkles or a brief shower rain delay, not an evening-long washout — at least as it looks now.
By Sunday, most of the clouds and showers should be out of our region, though the southwest corner may hang on to a thin chance of showers and thunderstorms with return flow around a high bringing the cooler weather farther east.
Many spots will drop into the 50s on Sunday and Monday mornings, a few hanging near 60. (Might it drop into the mid-upper 40s in those typical icebox spots like Burke’s Garden and Copper Hill?) Highs will be in the 70s for most locations, a few scraping 80 or a degree or two more.
The dreaded dew point will likely be in the 50s to maybe some lower 60s, much more comfortable than the upper 60s to mid 70s dew points we’ve experienced all but maybe three or four days the past five weeks.
Again, you may get a brief feeling that sort of feels fall-like this weekend or early next week, but it is still August. Warming back up and remoistening will happen only slowly next week.
One way fall fans can look at this coming pattern shift is that it may be the first deep divot in summer’s armor that we have seen. Summer heat doesn’t get swept out suddenly, it gets chipped away over the course of two or three months. This may be at least a start of that process of moving toward autumn.
The slow march from sweating to sweaters may be taking a first baby step.
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. Sign up for his weekly newsletter: