WASHINGTON —Many people have Monday, Labor Day, off from work. But for those who don’t, we’ll still include it in this edition of the Workweek Weather blog.
Nature doesn’t always adhere to the calendar, anyway. But this week nature will adhere and it will be a reminder that Labor Day only marks the unofficial end of summer. It’s still very much actually summer, and it will feel like it.
The high-pressure system — which ultimately wasn’t positioned ideally enough to send Hermine back closer to the coast over the weekend, sparing beach-goers additional heavy rains (but not the heavy surf and some beach erosion)— will have already wedged its way down from New England and the Appalachians, bringing a cool, dry, comfortable start to Monday. The storm will still be off the Mid-Atlantic coast, sending, perhaps, some additional high-level clouds overhead. But that will be the end of its effects for us.
Labor Day will be seasonable and comfortably warm, a great day for outdoor activities. But the ridge of high pressure will settle to our south and east Tuesday, while what’s left of Hermine heads up the New England coast. The new position of the high will work like another Bermuda High, bringing us another heatwave, a significant one for this late in the season.
The pattern will be aided by a strong trough of low pressure (a “dip” in the jet stream) out west in the Rockies and northern Plains, associated with some early cooler weather spilling into central Canada. All that combined with the winds sloping down the Appalachians (compressing the air) will mean temperatures well above average this week and close to records. Eventually a bit of humidity will be tapped from the Gulf of Mexico, making it feel even hotter.
A cold front will be inching its way across the country during the week, but it won’t get here until the weekend at the earliest, and that will be the next chance for any precipitation. When fronts are essentially parallel with the jet stream, they move very slowly.
Daily weather highlights
Monday/Labor Day
- Sunshine through high level clouds
- Afternoon temperatures a little above average in the mid 80s
Tuesday:
- Winds at the surface starting shifting a bit more southwesterly
- Very comfortable start to the day
- Lots of sunshine and westerly flow help temperatures rise to near 90 or low 90s
- Humidity creeps back up to the stickier levels during the evening
Wednesday and Thursday:
- Very hot for early September
- Humidity gets back up into the muggy range, making it feel even hotter
- Still rain-free with only partial cloudiness
Friday
- More cloud cover may keep temperatures in lower 90s, but heat wave continues