TOMS RIVER, NJ – Record-breaking heat is expected to greet tourists at the Jersey Shore and beyond one week before the official Memorial Day Weekend summer kickoff.
The National Weather Service today said record-breaking heat is expected to intensify and expand up the East Coast over the next couple of days as heat becomes less intense over the southern Plain.
In the west, it’s a different story as a late season cold air surge will bring cold weather and snow across the western U.S., culminating in a late-season wintry weather event over the central Rockies/High Plains late tonight into Saturday.
“The surge of cold air associated with a digging upper trough will overspread much of the western U.S. with unseasonably cold temperatures together with a round of heavy mountain snows, first from the northern Rockies and then down to the Colorado Rockies today,” the NWS said. “6-10 inches of snow with locally higher amounts are possible for the aforementioned areas by Saturday morning. Strong and gusty winds are also expected in these areas into the High Plains as the low-pressure system intensifies. The surge of cold air will bring a dramatic drop of temperatures from the 90s down to freezing across the central High Plains where a late-season winter weather event is forecast to develop.”
Potential exists for more than a foot of snow across the higher elevations of the Colorado Rockies while accumulating snowfall can be expected down into the central High Plains.
Back here in the east, a heatwave is forecast to intensify and expand up the coast through the weekend under a strengthening upper-level ridge.
“Increasingly warm southwesterly wind flow around the Bermuda high will send afternoon temperatures to record levels,” the NWS said today. “Much of the Mid-Atlantic, Carolinas and Ohio/Tennessee Valley will experience highs well into the 90s today, and reaching into interior New England by Saturday.”
High temperatures are forecast to be between 20-30 degrees above average for much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Saturday.