First Alert Weather: Red Alert issued Thursday & Friday for high heat, humidity and storms

Our CBS New York First Alert Weather Team has issued a Red Alert for Thursday and Friday due to high heat and humidity. Strong storms are also expected Thursday.

We are about to enter our hottest stretch of weather so far this year.

An Air Quality Alert is in place through 11 p.m. Thursday.

For Wednesday night, skies will remain mostly clear. Humidity levels will be rising, as we'll see of low of just 76.

Thursday begins with partly cloudy skies. A few showers are possible to the north and west of the city around 8 a.m. We'll then see a break, and skies will clear, opening the door for the high heat to infiltrate the region.

Highs will be well into the mid-upper 90s, with heat indices in the low 100s. An Excessive Heat Warning has been issued to include all five boroughs and northeastern New Jersey on Thursday and Friday due to this.

The high heat will fuel strong to severe thunderstorms later in the afternoon and evening. The storms may contain damaging winds, small hail, torrential rain and maybe even a tornado.

On Friday, we'll experience extremely high temperatures and humidity levels coupled with poor air quality. It appears that the heat will peak on Friday, as actual temps approach the century mark and apparent temps reach into the 100-108 range.

Since we haven't seen lots of heat this summer, many people have not been conditioned to it, so this only exacerbates the situation. Click here to check out our summer safety guide.