A Break From High Heat This Week

After 35 90-degree days in the Philadelphia area, the prospect of a week free of mentions of heat index, extreme heat, or heat warnings should make a number of the heat-intolerant locally quite happy. While humidity will still be around on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday the odds of a heat wave or a stretch of 90-degree days is rather remote. We could briefly flirt with 90 on either Monday, Tuesday, or Friday but computer modeling from this point suggests highs generally don't get there at all this week.

Despite the lack of heat in the coming days, there will be humidity (as we mentioned) and a couple of rounds of thunderstorms moving through the region. The first will be Tuesday afternoon and evening with a cool front approaching the region. Humidity will increase on Tuesday in advance of the front, which will produce scattered afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Some of those might be severe, some may produce heavy rainfall. We shouldn't see the levels of heavy rainfall we saw on Thursday, Friday or Saturday around the region with thunderstorm activity that moves through but Tuesday's storms could still be strong.

Wednesday marks a transition of lower humidity, to a nice Thursday, before we rinse and repeat with the increase of humidity for Friday. Another storm system will bring a chance of thunderstorms on Friday night into Saturday, with another shot of heavy to severe thunderstorm activity possible. In the wake of the second front, we might see some more pronounced cooler air working in. By cooler, not anything that will require a jacket but highs may not get much above 80 on Sunday or Monday of next week.

Tom Thunstrom is the editor and publisher of Phillyweather.net. You can also follow Phillyweather.net on twitter @phillywx or on Facebook.