THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 29, 1995 TAG: 9507290264
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 131 lines
Don't brag too loudly about living through The Great Bake of '95: It isn't that hot, just persistent. And the lengthening record heat wave in Hampton Roads may be as much a product of urban sprawl as anything nature is doing.
``Although parts of the state, particularly Norfolk and Richmond, are setting some records for consecutive 90-degree days, much of the state is experiencing little more than a moderately warmer than normal summer,'' said Jerry Stenger, research coordinator for the State Climatology Office in Charlottesville.
``There is some suggestion that an urban effect is involved in enhancing the severity of this hot spell,'' Stenger said Friday.
Cities - packed with concrete, steel, industry and vehicles - tend to be warmer than outlying suburbs and hotter still than rural areas.
Hampton Roads sometimes gets relief from cooling breezes off the Atlantic. But not this time.
``The current weather pattern has entrenched itself so strongly that it has suppressed the normal sea breeze,'' Stenger said.
While most of Virginia is running 2 to 3 degrees above normal, Stenger said, Hampton Roads has been 8 to 10 degrees above. For instance, Friday's mean temperature was 87 - 8 degrees above normal.
Still, the high temperatures Norfolk has posted have not been unusual. Only twice in the past two weeks have records been set - 101 on July 15 and 99 on Monday.
``Up and down the East Coast, you're not having the hottest weather you've ever had, it is just persistent,'' said Tony Fulkerson, senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta.
Friday's high of 96 marked the 17th consecutive day that the mercury has hit or exceeded 90 at Norfolk International Airport.
And there's no relief in sight.
The seven-day forecast for the mid-Atlantic region shows the hot streak continuing in the Norfolk area, said its author, Russell Martin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Climate Analysis Center.
``I don't see any chance of it breaking any time soon. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is,'' Martin said Friday. ``We're up here in D.C., and it's not any better here. Until we get a good blast of air from the north, we'll stay on the hot side.''
The persistent hot weather across the nation is the result of twin domes of high pressure anchored in positions that largely dominate weather patterns. They work like wheels on a conveyor belt, channeling weather systems to the north and keeping cool air bottled up along and north of the U.S.-Canadian border.
One of the wheels is the seasonal Bermuda high, currently centered close to the island. Its circulation reaches deep into the Southeast. And it's doubly thick, the combination of one high-pressure system near the surface and a second above it in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
The second high-pressure dome is over the Southwest. It is there that the jet stream - a high-speed river of air in the upper atmosphere that plays a major weather-shaping role - is first being turned north.
``It's deflected the jet stream well north across southern Canada, and that general pattern has steered all the cooler air up to our north,'' Martin said.
As the jet stream heads east, it is sometimes able to dip south into the Ohio River Valley, Pennsylvania and upstate New York, allowing some cold fronts to edge into the central states. But then it runs into the Bermuda High and turns northward again.
Last week, the Chicago area bore the brunt of the heat wave as hundreds perished in record-setting heat. But in the long term, New England - where temperatures have sometimes been hotter than in Florida - has been faring the worst.
``They've been hot and dry too,'' Martin said. ``June was the driest in Vermont in 101 years, and a number of the other states are also very dry. They are having some severe water shortages, so I guess we're maybe a little better off because we're getting some rain in thunderstorms.''
Most of Virginia is below normal for rainfall but not yet in danger of facing a drought, he said.
Even with the deaths in Chicago and the drought in New England, the summer's weather is ``typical summertime heat,'' Martin said.
``It's been a bit longer than normal - hanging in on the East Coast a little more stubbornly than usual - but that's kind of a random thing,'' Martin said.
The heat wave is not without benefit, too, he said: It's a shield against hurricanes.
The big tropical cyclones sometimes punch their way through even the strongest weather systems. If a hurricane were to head this way, however, ``the Bermuda high would win out,'' Martin said. ``A hurricane developing in the central Atlantic would tend to be pushed south and more toward Florida.''
This heat wave differs from the norm in one respect - it has not been offset by unusually cold weather somewhere else.
``Generally, over the world, there are no large areas that are below normal temperatures for an extended time,'' said The Weather Channel's Fulkerson. ``There are many areas that also are much warmer than normal.''
Western Europe, Alaska, India and much of Asia are experiencing warmer-than-normal weather. ``We're not at all alone,'' he said.
There are a few small, isolated cold spots. For instance, temperatures in Great Falls, Mont., have been well below normal all summer.
Martin is envious. ``If they could can it and send it to us, I'd be plenty happy,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
KNIGHT-RIDDER TRIBUNE, JOHN EARLE/Staff
HEAT
IN THE CITIES
HEAT
ACROSS THE COUNTRY
HEAT
AND THE DEATH TOLL
[Color Photo]
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A body is wheeled from a morgue in Chicago, where hundreds have died
in record-setting heat.
KEYWORDS: WEATHER by CNB