Kevin Myatt

Remnants of Hurricane Isaias brought widespread rainfall to soak dry ground and raise reservoir levels this past weekend, but there isn’t a followup rainy system in the pipeline.

The Atlantic tropical season’s latest first hurricane of the satellite era is expected to strike the Gulf Coast near where Alabama and the Florida Panhandle meet.

The first couple days of October brought some infrequent 90-degree highs to some locations in Southwest and Southside Virginia, but cooler weather has set in since then.

An El Niño-charged weather pattern washed away an extreme Virginia drought in three months 24 years ago.

Wednesday’s chilly dampness will be followed by a cool but dry weekend.

Still no sign of consistently cooler temperatures or wetter drought-easing weather patterns on the horizon.

Strong winds aloft over the Atlantic related to the ongoing strong El Niño, the warming of the equatorial Pacific sea surface, are keeping tropical development in check.

Diana Dymacek of Lexington missed by only one degree total on her best two of three guesses on the summer’s hottest temperature at Southwest and Southside Virginia regional locations.

There is some relief from the heat wave on the way over the Labor Day weekend and into early next week, but it might come with football-interfering showers and storms.

Drought, storms and heat waves all entered the discussion at various times this summer, and heat is resurging into this first week of September.