Showers To Bring Relief From Heat Wave
BOSTON (CBS) - It's official.
We now have our first heat wave of the season and it comes on the first three days of summer.
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A heat wave by definition is three consecutive days with temperatures 90 degrees or higher.
Boston's high on Wednesday was 97, it was 96 Thursday and we topped 90 just before 11 a.m. today.
It's our first heat wave since last summer (July 31-Aug 2) and our first June heat wave since 2008.
If you don't like the heat, there is good news, some relief is on the way.
A cold front is currently situated in New York State and moving steadily eastward.
This is the boundary between our 90 degree, oppressive weather and a somewhat cooler and drier air mass to the west.
The only problem is getting from one side to the other won't be easy.
First, we are expecting some showers and thunderstorms to erupt out ahead of this cold front later this afternoon and this evening.
While some could be severe, producing torrential downpours and frequent lightning, the atmospheric parameters are not aligned for a true severe weather outbreak.
Storms are likely to be somewhat spotty and scattered not imminent for every community.
The timing of these storms is likely to be mid-afternoon in western New England and late afternoon through this evening in central and eastern sections.
Our next problem - the front is not just going to keep on moving once it arrives.
A large "Bermuda High" pressure area is sitting over the western Atlantic and it will serve as a block for this cold front, not allowing it to push through quickly.
As the cold front arrives, it will slow to a crawl and stall over extreme eastern Massachusetts overnight and early Saturday morning.
This will provide a trigger for additional showers or storms to fire up overnight into Saturday morning.
It does appear that by midday Saturday the front will have made enough progress eastward to allow for mainly sunny skies to dominate southern New England.
An additional isolated pop-up shower cannot be ruled out Saturday afternoon, but nothing that should make you change any outdoor plans.
Finally, we may have seen the last of the 90's for a while.
The forecasted highs for most, if not all, of next week are in the 70s with another round of rain on Monday.
You can follow Terry on Twitter at @TerryWBZ.
