Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406210111
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Get out of Virginia, for that matter. Actually, if you want to escape this steamy spell, you'll have to go all the way to New England.
The hot, dry days are here to stay, according to reliable sources who asked not to be identified for fear that otherwise law-abiding citizens suffering severe cranial meltdown would kill the messengers.
Well, OK - they're Jan Jackson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Roanoke station, and Jerry Stenger, research associate with the State Climatologists Office in Charlottesville.
"I guess it qualifies for a heat wave," Jackson said Friday, the fourth day in a row that temperatures have reached into the 90s - about 10 degrees above normal.
We haven't broken any records yet, but who cares about a few degrees? It's hot.
And dry. Only half an inch of rain has fallen this month, well below the average of 1.83 inches.
The good news, Stenger said, is that extra precipitation last winter (remember the ice storms?) and spring has recharged the ground water supply. So there's plenty of drinking water.
"The bad news is this is going to significantly impact agriculture around the state," Stenger said. Scattered thunderstorms, typical for this time of year, don't provide reliable rain for all areas.
His office last week alerted the State Drought Monitoring Task Force - a conglomeration of state and federal agencies - that continued hot, dry conditions could bode disaster for some crops in some parts of the state.
The last time a Virginia governor declared a drought was in 1980 and 1981, but it was limited to the Tidewater region, said Erlinda Patron, the task force coordinator.
Farmers are edgy this year because the heat has taken much of the moisture from the ground's surface and vegetation. This will lead to more flame-broiled weather because the sun's energy, instead of evaporating the moisture, will heat the air.
"In a way, a hot, dry summer begets a hot, dry summer," Stenger said.
Great. And it's not even summer yet, officially. The solstice occurs June 21, at 10:48 a.m., when the sun reaches its highest point over the northern hemisphere. It also is the longest day of the year - 15 hours and one minute of daylight.
The 90-day forecast calls for above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall.
"Hopefully, this will be wrong," Stenger said.
According to Harris' Farmers Almanac, it is. The almanac calls for above-normal temps, but above normal rainfall, too.
It also says the hottest stretch will be June 16 through 23.
"Air conditioners in Virginia are always a good investment," said Stenger, who just installed one in his garage - in case he wanted to do any work out there this summer.
A high-pressure system called the Bermuda High that stretches from the Atlantic to the Mississippi Valley dominates the weather for most the summer. Its intensity fluctuates, without much predictability. The system tends to keep the jet stream, which acts as a boundary between the cool and warm temps, to the north. It's hanging around New England right now, Stenger said.
"Does this have anything to do with global warming? No more than this winter had anything to do with an ice age," he said.
by CNB