Summer Heat Starts Off The Week

It may only be April, but tomorrow will feel like summer as warm breezes out ahead of a cool front push temperatures into the upper 80s throughout the region. Record highs around the area set in 2002 are 89 or 90 depending on your location. That 2002 heat event also featured temperatures in the mid 90s a couple of days later, but we are unlikely to duplicate that this week. A cool front crosses the region early in the overnight hours on Tuesday, bringing a slow slip in temperatures for Tuesday and midweek.

In the wake of the frontal passage, temperatures step down from the upper 80s on Monday to the 70s on Tuesday, to around 70 on Wednesday and through the balance of the week. The front will initially cross the region dry but there's a chance for a shower or sprinkle on Wednesday, especially south of us, as a weak wave of low pressure pushes northeast along the front as it continues to slide off the coast. I doubt this is a factor for much of the region.

Towards the weekend, there's a potential for a stronger area of low pressure to impact the region. There is a good deal of uncertainty over the details, track and timing but the majority of computer guidance out there shows this storm system lifting north and northeast out of the Deep South, bringing rain and thunder to the region on Saturday and perhaps Sunday as well. It's possible this storm system brings us the most significant rainfall we've seen in some time, which would come in handy as our rainfall for the year so far is only at about half of normal levels.

Going into late April, more typical weather will return after this weekend's storm system. Other than our flirtation with 90 to start the work week, no real signs of big time heat are in the offing for a while.

Tom Thunstrom is the editor and publisher of Phillyweather.net. You can follow him on Twitter @phillywx or like him on Facebook.