July Heating Up

We're now half way through the month of July, and our average temperature is running about 3 degrees above normal. That's pretty warm, but not even in the top 10 in hottest Julys on record for Richmond. It looks like that might be about to change. There has been a consistent signal in the extended model solutions over the past several days that a large ridge of high pressure will be building into the region next week. This pattern will result in our third wave of triple-digit heat bracketed by several days of highs in the upper 90s. Should this materialize, we could easily follow up the hottest June on record with the hottest July on record. I've already included triple-digit heat in our 7-day forecast, and will have updates over the next several days.