Warming into the weekend; heat wave ahead

Get out and enjoy Friday, especially if you have yard work you need to do.  Temperatures will be slightly below normal with highs in the upper 70°s to lower 80°s.

We’ve got two rounds of heat coming to southeast Nebraska.  The first comes this weekend.  Temperatures will climb to the upper 80°s to around 90° for Saturday.  Dew point temperatures, the measure of moisture in the air, will climb in to the upper 60°s.  Anything above 60° feels uncomfortable.  Once reaching the upper 60°s and lower 70°s it starts to feel tropical, or as I like to call it “muggly”.

Temperatures go higher Sunday, topping out in the lower 90°s.  I think the biggest impact will be the humidity Sunday.  Dew point temperatures are projected to climb in to the lower and middle 70°s.  This will send heat indices, or the feel like temperature, in to the lower 100°s.

Yes, Nebraskans experience 100°+ heat indices every year, but it has been quite some time since we’ve had humidity, and the heat, this high.  The last time Lincoln had a heat index of at least 100° was xx.

Air temperatures go even high Monday.  Under partly cloudy skies temperatures will climb in to the upper 90°s.  The one bit of good news is that it will not be as humid as Sunday.  Don’t get me wrong, it will still feel humid out but dew point temperatures are projected to be in the middle 60°s.

LATE NEXT WEEK HOT DOME

An upper-level “hot dome” will have wide reaching impacts to the central United States late next week.  Long range computer models suggest the “hot dome” will move over the central Plains next weekend, sending temperatures to the century mark.

Lincoln averages three days reaching 100° annually and we may get two of those days June 18 and 19.  Of interest, this would be an early 100° in Lincoln.  The normal first 100° in the city occurs on July 6.  The city’s earliest 100° temperature happened May 14, 2013.

– Chief Meteorologist John Dissauer