Today was what we expect on a typical summer day. Highs 90+, morning sunshine bubbling up some spotty (30-40%) T-Storms, brief cooling relief followed by late sunshine...we've been here before. It does appear our daily rain coverage will increase as a weak upper disturbance drifts over us from the east. Models are still indicating a weak cool front will slide down into the Gulf next Tuesday & Wednesday and that could add to our daily shower coverage. We always are on alert when a front sags into the Gulf during July or August, but none of the models are indicating any development AT THIS TIME. What it should do is make us less humid for Thursday & Friday. No cooling relief since dry air heats up faster than moist air, but we should feel better with less humidity.
Yesterday I vented about the use and abuse of the Heat Index by most TV weathercasters and especially network broadcasters. I remember growing up we just had temperatures to tell us how hot it was. When I started with Roy Leep in Tampa (Ch. 13) in 1971, a Jacksonville weathercaster named George Winterling (real name!) published an article on "Humiture" in an effort to explain why it felt so hot in the South. The NWS (National Weather Service) developed the first Heat index in the late 70s or early 80s called the THI (Temperature Humidity Index). Several years later that was simplified to the present day Heat Index. I think it is a useful tool, but looking at any nightly network newscast, all they show is the Heat Index. If you aren't paying attention, you might just think that is the real temperature and wow, we really are getting hotter. Bravo to the TWC (The Weather Channel) for including examples of many times in the past when the heat waves were worse. Yesterday they were in full over-hype mode. Today they have been putting our current heat wave into perspective and for that I applaud them. Stay tuned!
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