CHARLESTON,W.Va. — Temperatures Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday will be well north of 90 degrees across much of West Virginia and when combined with humidity levels in the range of 70, it’s going to be an extremely warm weekend. The National Weather Service said the “feel like” temperature, or heat index, will be 100 to 110 degrees in some locations.
“Feels like temperature is calculated from a combination of the air temperature and the dew point and what it feels like to the human body given those two parameters,” said Meteorologist Ross Giarratana of the National Weather Service in Charleston speaking on MetroNews “Talkline.”
The National Weather Service has already issued Excessive Heat Warnings for 16 counties for Friday into Saturday evening. Sixteen more are under a heat advisory or heat watch for the same time period. Even nights will be warm with lows in the upper 70’s or 80’s across the lowlands.
“We have widespread alerts already in effect, the excessive heat warnings are generally along and west of the I-79 corridor. Heat advisories stretch from Taylor County through Lewis County, and down into Mingo County,” he said.
The only counties not under the advisories are the high mountain counties of West Virginia.
Despite the intense humidity, Giarratana predicted there won’t be much rain beyond an occasional pop up shower.
“With all of the hot air at the surface and mid-levels of the atmosphere, it may actually prevent thunderstorm development,” he explained.
It’s possible some locations might set record highs on those days, but Giarratana added a heat wave, during July, isn’t that unusual.
“There are some areas that will be close to record high territory, but typically in the summer season you could always expect some prolonged period of hot weather like this.” he said.
The counties named in the warning are Wayne, Cabell, Mason, Jackson, Wood, Pleasants, Tyler, Lincoln, Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Wirt, Calhoun, Ritchie and Doddridge counties.
Meteorologists have issued an excessive heat watch for Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Marion, Monongalia, Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties.
Mingo, Logan, Boone, Clay, Braxton and Taylor counties are among the counties under a heat advisory.