Late-day sun shines through rising smoke from a brush fire on Fort Lewis Mountain, as seen from Salem, on Friday, July 3. The fire burned about 100 acres in Havens Rest Wildlife Management Area before it was contained by fire crews with no threat to homes or businesses. Courtesy of Zach Breyan.
Late-day sun shines through rising smoke from a brush fire on Fort Lewis Mountain, as seen from Salem, on Friday, July 3. The fire burned about 100 acres in Havens Rest Wildlife Management Area before it was contained by fire crews with no threat to homes or businesses. Courtesy of Zach Breyan.

The worst heat wave in 14 years has passed.

But don’t break out the sweaters. There’s a lot more sweating left.

It is, after all, July. We are going to have lots of “regular” hot, sticky days in which some temperatures pop over 90. There might even be something of a resurgence of higher heat in a week or so.

At the bottom of this column, we recap some of the heat standards established during last week’s intense hot spell. Many of them point back to that torrid June 28-July 9 period of 2012, from whence the derecho sprang, as the last time it was even hotter, or at least similarly hot for longer, in Cardinal News’ Southwest and Southside Virginia region.

We also still have ongoing drought, too. It may or may not seem like it at the moment wherever you live, as we’ve had some pretty hefty downpours here and there since the heat started breaking on the afternoon of Independence Day. The rain gauge in my backyard south of Roanoke just filled up with an inch and a half of rain in about an hour on this Tuesday evening as I type this.  

A small creek is completely dried up on the Hollins University campus on Saturday, July 4. Photo by Dwayne Yancey.
A small creek is completely dried up on the Hollins University campus on Saturday, July 4. Photo by Dwayne Yancey.

But while these spotty downpours can be helpful for some aspects of short-term dryness — and, at times, even a little problematic with localized flooding — we’re not going to see major improvement in the long-term severe to extreme drought until there is widespread soaking rain. That is typically hard to come by in July and August, and looks unlikely in weeks ahead.

Frequent bouts of showers and storms could, at least, keep the drought from getting much worse.

Heat wave moving, regrouping

The heat wave has passed for Southwest and Southside Virginia, and most of the Eastern U.S., the first sentence should have read, more specifically.

The heat dome high-pressure system appears likely to rematerialize at mid-month over the central U.S. There are some indications it could become very extreme there with a core of many 110+ degree temperatures.

While the core of heat shifts to the north-central U.S. at mid-month on the Climate Prediction Center temperature forecast map, light orange still over Virginia indicates at least a slight tilt of the odds to hotter than normal temperatures. Courtesy of Climate Prediction Center.
While the core of heat shifts to the north-central U.S. at mid-month on the Climate Prediction Center temperature forecast map, light orange still over Virginia indicates at least a slight tilt of the odds to hotter than normal temperatures. Courtesy of Climate Prediction Center.

We could be under an eastern bulge of that heat dome by mid-month, possibly as part of an almost coast-to-coast sweep of above-normal midsummer temperatures. For us, we probably won’t see a lot more 100-plus stuff, but maybe some fairly common mid-upper 90s again for a few days.

The catch will be that, with the high west of us, its clockwise rotation will bring in more upper-air flow from the northwest.

That is often cooler, but in this case, may just be bringing in stale “not-quite-as-hot” air from the Northern Plains and southern Canada. As the high backs up a little farther west toward later in the month, it is possible it will better tap some cooler air from more northern latitudes that could give some portion of the eastern U.S. a real break from heat.

A downburst of rain erupts from a thunderstorm at Covington on Saturday, July 4. Courtesy of Luke Barrette.
A downburst of rain erupts from a thunderstorm at Covington on Saturday, July 4. Courtesy of Luke Barrette.

The high centered to our west will also bring down more disturbances and fronts that will trigger fairly frequent rounds of showers and thunderstorms. Some strong to severe storms with damaging winds are possible just about any day.

The showers and storms won’t be enough to solve the drought, but as noted, perhaps can eventually spread enough rain over a wide enough area to at least keep the drought from deepening badly through what are historically the hottest weeks of the year.

Hottest temperatures since 2012, or longer, for many

We mused here a week ago about whether locations that had never seen a 100-degree day on July 4 in over a century of record would this time around. Many did.

Danville and South Boston were 103 on the Fourth of July, Lynchburg reached 101, Chatham, Brookneal, and Martinsville each hit 100. None of those locations had ever hit 100 on Independence Day.

Storms that developed on July 4 got their start as numerous cumulus updrafts around midday, more clouds that had been seen in days, as viewed from the Valley View Mall area of Roanoke. Photo by Kevin Myatt.
Storms that developed on July 4 got their start as numerous cumulus updrafts formed around midday, more clouds than had been seen in days, as viewed from the Valley View Mall area of Roanoke. Photo by Kevin Myatt.

Roanoke did not, as nearby storms intervened and stopped the mercury at 99 degrees on Saturday. That tied the July 4 record high of 99 in the Star City, but for the 115th straight year of official weather data, no triple-digit temperature on the Fourth of July.

While some locations were reaching the 100-degree mark for the first time in 14 years, Burke’s Garden was doing the same with the 90-degree mark, its 91-degree high recorded as July 3 being the first above 90 degrees and the hottest since it hit 92 during the 2012 heat wave.

Peak temperatures of 93 at Galax, 96 at Pulaski, 97 at Wytheville, and 100 at Chatham and Brookneal were the hottest temperatures recorded at those locations in 14 years, since various dates within the June 30-July 9 heat wave of 2012.

Even the deep valley at Paint Bank in Craig County was hot on Friday, July 3, as only a couple clouds could form in the open skies over Potts Mountain. Photo by Kevin Myatt.
Even the deep valley at Paint Bank in Craig County was hot on Friday, July 3, as only a couple clouds could form in the open skies over Potts Mountain. Photo by Kevin Myatt.

Some other notable heat milestones:

  • Danville’s highs of 102 on July 3 and 103 on July 4 were the first consecutive days at or above 100 degrees since four straight days went above that mark July 5-8, 2012, and they were the first consecutive days at or above 102 since June 29-30, 2012. The July 4 high of 103 was Danville’s hottest single day since it was 104 on June 29, 2012.
  • Roanoke hit 100 on three consecutive days (July 1-3) for the first time in 43 years, since Aug. 19-21 had temperatures of 104, 105 and 104, respectively. This time it only reached 100 on the button, all three days tying or setting new record highs for the particular dates.
  • Lynchburg’s high of 100 on July 3 was the first time it had reached the century mark in the Hill City since doing so on July 8, 2012. Following that up with a 101-degree high on July 4 made for the first consecutive triple-digit days since July 7-8, 2012.
  • Blacksburg’s heat peaked at 96 on July 2 and 3, but that was the hottest in 19 years, since it was 97 on Aug. 16, 2007. The last time it was hotter in Blacksburg was 38 years ago, 97 on July 9, 1988.
  • South Boston’s twin 103-degree highs, recorded officially as July 4 and 5 in the 8 a.m. to 8 a.m. recording cycle of co-op stations, are the hottest since it was also 103 on July 9, 2012, and the last back-to-back 103s since those recorded June 30-July 1 of the same year. The last time it was hotter was 104 on July 6, 2012.

The recent heat wasn’t all that for every location.

Abingdon peaked at 96 degrees during this heat wave, but hit 97 just two summers ago.

The typically hottest site in our region, the John H. Kerr Dam in Mecklenburg County, hit 100, and no higher, on only one day last week. That was the hottest it had been there since June 15, as in 2 ½ weeks earlier, when it was 101. Two days before that on June 13, it hit 104.

Somehow, the mid-June hot spell was even worse than this recent one at the dam.

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.  

To submit a photo, send it to weather@cardinalnews.org or tweet it to @CardinalNewsVa or @KevinMyattWx. Please identify the location and date of the photo with each submission.

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Kevin Myatt has written about Southwest and Southside Virginia weather for the past two decades, previously...