A heat advisory is in effect until 8 p.m. Wednesday with heat index values as high as 105 degrees, and 102 degrees expected Thursday. Temperatures remain steady in the lower 90s through Friday, before cooling down to the lower 80s by Saturday. Lows will drift from the mid-70s Wednesday night to the lower 60s by Saturday.
Isolated showers and thunderstorms are possible Wednesday and Thursday night lingering into Friday morning, where then, strong to severe thunderstorms are likely to occur the rest of the day Friday as a cold front moves through the area. Damaging winds are the primary threat, with lightning and heavy rain also expected.
Speaking of incoming showers, one of the biggest meteor showers of the year, the Perseids, are already showing up in our nighttime skies. The Perseids are fragments of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits between the Sun and beyond the orbit of Pluto once every 133 years. The meteors are called the Perseids because the point from which they appear to come from lies in the constellation Perseus. These meteors travel 37 miles per second, or about 133,000 miles per hour, before bursting about 60 miles above the surface of the Earth.
Ideal opportunities to see them begin tonight, and with the moon setting early, peak viewing hours are from midnight to dawn. Those far away from light pollution, or light from cities, may see 50-100 Perseids an hour, with those inside the city seeing only a few every hour. Saturday may be the last optimal chance for viewing before they become less frequent and eventually invisible again until next year.
