Getting A Pumped Up Ridge

Channel your inner Hans and Frans -- Mother Nature is about to pump *clap* up the atmosphere with a ridge of high pressure in the mid atmosphere, resulting in a stretch of rather hot weather late next week or next weekend locally, with a run at 100 degrees not out of the question locally.

Mercifully, we will not see the worst of the heat and humidity.  That honor belongs to the Midwest, where this ridge will set up shop and temperatures could reach or breech 100 degrees in Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, and other cities for a few days next week, with Chicago potentially seeing several days of upper 90's and near 100 degree temperatures.   This heat wave has the look of 1995's long duration heat wave to it...thankfully, it should not last as long but it could be just as nasty for Chicago and for the Midwest and it would not surprise me if there were fatalities in a number of the big cities from the heat.

 The question regarding "how hot we get" comes down to position of the upper ridge over us for Thursday-Saturday.   The GFS in the afternoon runs on Friday centered the ridge over the Appalachians, a pretty good spot for us to get some hot weather as upper levels are rather warm nearby.   The core of the heat ridge is near us and temperatures could approach 100 in such a scenario.  The Euro is a bit farther west with the heat core, over the Ohio Valley on Friday evening, which results in mid 90's for highs...still hot but not "prime heat."    The models have flipped and flopped over which scenario they prefer but in either scenario we're talking mid 90's, at least, for Thursday through Saturday.

If the "cooler" solution were to verify we could see some thunderstorm complexes track closer to the region around the periphery of the heat ridge.   The "ring of fire" of thunderstorm activity around the upper ridge is certainly possible...if the ridge isn't quite as strong or is centered a bit farther west we could see some thunderstorms in/close to the region during the heat event.

Factoring in humidity, heat index values could reach 105 during this time frame.   It will be oppressive but not as bad as in the Midwest, which could see heat index values around 120 on Monday or Tuesday in some locations.   The heat is back on...and this is likely the prime heat event for the year across the country.