The intense July heat affecting parts of Mexico has started expanding across the western and southern tier of the US, according to the National Weather Service.
This means while many parts of the U.S. continue to face brutal temperatures, the Great Basin, Pacific Northwest and California can begin to endure the similar heat Friday.
Heat-related advisories and warnings remain spread throughout the Central and Southern Plains, the Lower Mississippi Valley and portions of the Desert Southwest and California, the NWS reports.
Multiple locations in the West could tie or break their all time record high.
“We’re expecting a large dome of high pressure to build overhead,” Accuweather meteorologist Mike Youman told USA TODAY.
Youman said Las Vegas, the Phoenix Death Valley, Fresno, California and Flagstaff, Arizona are among the areas forecasted near or exactly at record highs.
Here’s the forecast for Friday:
High humidity to make high temperatures more brutal among Plains, Southeast
For multiple locations in the Plains, Lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast, temperatures in the upper 90s and low 100s aren’t the only thing they need to worry about. With the combination of high humidity, 100 degrees could feel worse than 115 degrees, the NWS reports.
The NWS forecasts the wave to haunt the region through this weekend and into next week. Over at least the next six days, about 27 million people across the lower 48 or contiguous US will experience an air temperature or heat index above 110.
“With the humidity continuing on the air feels heavier, feels harder to breathe. So all of that is caused by those those higher dew points and higher humidity values,” Youman said.
The northern Plains, however, should get a reprieve from the heat as cooler air from central Canada dips into the region by early Saturday, according to the National Weather Service forecast.
US heat index forecast
More severe rainfall unfolds Midwest, mid-Mississippi Valley and returns to New England
Southern New England and the coastal Mid-Atlantic states can expect heavy rain Friday as a slow-moving cold front shifts southeastward bringing with it a slight risk of excessive rainfall, meteorologists said.
Following the catastrophic flooding earlier this week, interior New England is still sensitive to more harsh rainfall requiring the forecast “to be monitored very closely as any changes can bring big impacts,” according to the weather service.
Further south, a slight risk of excessive rainfall was also in effect for the lower Mississippi Valley through the central Gulf Coast region on Friday, where severe storms could get organized through the day.
