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.

Drought Update July 15: Eastern Shore Included in Moderate Drought

Despite the scattered afternoon and nighttime thunderstorms we had earlier this week that produced localized totals from a half inch to around two inches, drought conditions did not change in the main body of Virginia and continued to expand since last week's Drought Update onto the Eastern Shore. Now about 37% of Virginia is in D1, the first level of drought. While these quick rain events do help with river and stream levels, as Zach mentioned in our previous blog, they aren't significant and lasting enough to raise the soil moisture content out of the drought and abnormally dry conditions prevalent across nearly the entire state.