The week before Labor Day has something in common with the week before the Fourth of July this summer: 100-degree temperatures in southern Virginia.
A record-setting heat wave is expected to continue Friday and only back off a few degrees on Saturday, before a cold front brings showers and storms over the weekend and ushers in a much cooler Labor Day with many locations not making it to 80 degrees.
While the present heat wave has significant similarity to one that overtook the region to start July, temperatures approaching and even exceeding the 100-degree mark are much more historically unusual in the first week of September.
Danville hit 102 degrees on Thursday, the hottest September temperature recorded there in 72 years, since poking 105 on Sept. 6, 1954. It was also a record for the date, beating 99 on Sept. 3 in 1930 and 1980.
It also hit 100 in Danville on Wednesday, which was the first triple-digit September high temperature since 1990. Together, Wednesday and Thursday were the first consecutive days of 100-plus temperatures in September at Danville since three days in a row on Sept. 5-7, 1954.
Lynchburg didn’t quite make it to 100, but the 99 recorded on both Wednesday and Thursday were the hottest September high temperatures in the Hill City since 1954. Thursday’s high of 99 set a record for the date, topping 96 on Sept. 3 in 1912 and 1930.
Most locations in Southwest and Southside Virginia have seen highs in the 90s multiple days this week, with a few spots in Southside scraping 100 once or twice. Normal high temperatures in the first week of September generally run in the upper 70s to mid 80s.
On these same dates a year ago, the region was experiencing daily high temperatures in the 70s and lows in the mid 40s to lower 50s. Low temperatures this week have been sticky, in the mid 60s to lower 70s, more akin to mid summer.
Labor Day itself will bring a breath of fresh air, but it will be short lived, as temperatures start climbing again next week, though probably not back to the current hot levels.
Daytime heating has fired an isolated storm or two amid the heat wave, but storm intensity and coverage is expected to increase some over the weekend with the approach of a cold front.
Whether this interferes with Saturday night’s VMI-Virginia Tech game is a matter of when exactly the front arrives, and how unstable it remains when it does. There is a reasonable chance the stronger storms will have pushed south into the Carolinas by game time, but any outdoor activities Saturday or Sunday could be interrupted by passing showers and a few storms.
Overall trends suggest warm, dry weather is likely to be the most common weather pattern in our region through much of September, perhaps allowing drought to resurge somewhat after being eroded somewhat by July and August stormy periods. Cold fronts may bring occasional cooler breaks, but no real switch-flip to more prolonged fall-like weather appears to be on the horizon yet.
El Niño, the irregularly recurring warm water stripe in the equatorial Pacific, appears to be doing its usual squelching of Atlantic tropical systems, with no hurricanes in the Atlantic basin yet this season, nearing some modern records for lateness. Wetter patterns often associated with El Niño in the southern and eastern U.S. typically don’t kick in until later in the fall or in winter.
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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