Pittsburgh Weather: Plenty of sunshine fuels another hot day
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - We could be looking at one of the hottest stretches of weather on record for the period starting yesterday and going through June 7.
Today: Temps will be back in the mid-80s. Humidity levels will remain low.
Any Alert Days Ahead?: One could argue one due to the heat.
Aware: First 90-degree days of the year are possible Friday and Saturday.
If you take that slice of time, our average temperature (add the high and low temp together and divide by two) will likely be in the 70s. This would put us in the top five all-time at the Pittsburgh Airport. The airport's records began in 1947; that is a significant amount of time. Even more concerning is looking at the current list of hot stretches for that period; we see that four of the six hottest stretches have occurred since 2008. The oldest year on the list is 1987.
Going a little deeper into the numbers, you may not notice, but there is a clear trend here in Western Pennsylvania for our summers arriving earlier and winters arriving later. Once you get to the hottest time of the year, humidity levels seem to be high enough that we haven't seen temperatures too far off what you would have expected thirty to forty years ago.
Morning lows, though, during that time have ticked up notably. During winter, it seems that when cold air arrives, it isn't sticking around for long.
Returning to the forecast, I have today's high at 84 degrees. Interestingly enough, I am keeping us a degree shy of what we hit yesterday. Normally, you'd assume with no front or rain chance that today's temperature should be equal to or even greater than yesterday's, but yesterday was an anomaly with temperatures way past what you'd expect. I think today we go back to more 'normal' weather for the conditions. Humidity levels will remain low, with dew points hovering near 50 degrees. Winds will be fairly light, coming out of the east at around 5-10 mph.
Finally, just wanted to quickly mention that for the month, we have only seen about half the amount of rain that we normally would see. So far, the NWS Moon site has recorded 1.7 inches of rain. This is behind by 1.73 inches.
I wish I could say rain is not too far off, but there aren't any great chances for rain over the next week.
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