High temperatures in the 80s this afternoon were made a bit worse by increasingly sticky humidity levels. When dew points approach 70 degrees, it’s getting a bit ugly. We’ve played with that value much of the day in D.C. Besides a few pop up showers and storms that will dwindle near sunset, the main story for now is continued warmth and humidity.
Through Tonight: Showers and thunderstorms remain a 30%-40% likelihood through the evening. Some spots could see quick downpours, lightning and briefly strong winds. Probably nothing too severe though. Things should taper as we lose the sun’s warmth, just leaving skies partly to mostly clear late night. Lows dip to the mid-60s in the cooler spots, while staying closer to 70 downtown.
Tomorrow (Tuesday): It’s a partly sunny and muggy day — ahh summer!! A little wave of showers or storms may try to pass mainly south of us during the day, so there’s a chance of a passing shower or storm midday or afternoon. Highs should again rise to the mid-and-upper 80s across the area.
Pollen update: Grass pollen is moderate/high, as are mold spores. Tree and weed pollen is low.
Cloud swirls: Over the weekend, NASA satellites caught a von Kármán vortex street off the coast of Baja California. They’re actually a fairly common feature in the region, showing up frequently off these islands. If you scroll through this month, you’ll see signs of them almost every day, though the last two days were particularly awesome.
So much weather data: Our ability to forecast the weather continues to improve, largely due to huge amounts of data. Per Nyberg discusses how much weather impacts everything around it, and how big data and super-computing is changing weather forecasting.