>Hurricane Felicia weakens from cat 4 to cat 3, east of Hawaii and thankfully this system will weaken SIGNIFICANTLY before a possible crossing of the island chain, thanks to upper shear, dry air and possibly even cooler waters. She is moving west, northwest and will turn more westward over the next couple of days. Meantime, the core of the heat centered over western Texas and Oklahoma is expanding and set to push north and east, although this hot, humid air is coming up against a warm frontal boundary and this collision is setting the stage for powerful thunderstorm development across the Northern Plains and Midwest, but the jet and the front along with this hot air is all pushing north and east and should bring Chicago it’s first 90s since June and possibly the hottest day since 2006. High’s could top off around 95 degrees and in failure to do so would keep it from hitting the summer peak for 2009. Ironically so far, Chicago’s peak summertime high for three straight years is 94 degrees! The warmest so far this summer is 94. Hotter than than for Chicago, we need to look back to the last couple of days in July 2006 when two days topped off at 99 degrees for the high at O’Hare. The 90s are expected to push east as well as north so New York City looks to have a chance at getting it’s first 90, although the track record of summer 2009 isn’t good and perhaps storms that could fire up may stop the air hitting 90 at Central Park. Sites such as Newark and LaGuardia, almost always warmer with it’s highly urbanised environment I would almost bet for 90 degrees possibly by Monday.

Many of you that are hating the heat across Texas and the Deep South, your gonna need to contend with it the rest of August, there is a cold front going to speep across the country, west to east through the weekend and into next week and will push the heat out, so anywhere that sees one or two scorching days, will see relief soon after, but those in the southern states won’t be so lucky as the heat simply gets pushed back south but not out into the Gulf or Atlantic, Sorry! Sorry also to those in the northern states that want to see some prolonged heat, it won’t happen this summer, it’s just not one of those kinda summers. The heat will build once again as the heat gets pushed out by mid next week off the east coast so watch Vegas and Phoenix as your temps climb once again towards 110.

Canadian and Alaska suffers from serious fires. Post on this to follow later..

Thanks for reading.

-Mark