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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Heat Wave #5 Ends With A Bang

Another scorcher today! Record heat?  Close, but no cigar! Windsor Locks was one degree shy of the record high, topping out at 96 degrees.  Bridgeport hit 92, that’s three degrees shy of the record.

Although today was hot, the humidity wasn’t unbearable.  That will change tonight. The dew point is a measure of how much moisture there is in the air.  The higher the dew point, the harder it is for your body to sweat and the more uncomfortable you feel. The air feels comfortable with dew points in the 50s, humid in the 60s and oppressive with dew points in the 70s. Tonight/tomorrow dew points climb up near 70 degrees, ouch! 

Our hot and humid air mass will get replaced by a cooler, more comfortable alternative Thursday into the weekend.  But with big changes in the weather, you can count on big storms.


The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK has Connecticut under a “slight risk” of severe weather tomorrow (Wednesday).  But the SPC’s convective outlooks are almost always too conservative.  So every time you read the word “slight” on a map like this, upgrade it to moderate. The best chance for storms will come after noon.  So… tomorrow will start off partly cloudy, hot and humid.  Then keep an eye on the sky as those storms bubble up around or after noon. The storms are arriving a little earlier than I thought which is good news!  If the storms arrived in the late afternoon, they would take advantage of the peak heating/instability of the day and be much stronger!  Still I think some storms tomorrow reach severe criteria.


Thursday will still be warm (mid-upper 80s) just not as humid.  Friday and the weekend look cooler with temperatures dropping back into the lower 80s.  Refreshing!

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