When it comes to Summer in the Tennessee Valley, we must always remember that August can be just as bad if not worse than July despite the fact that the average daily high actually drops. Looking through climate reports I find that August has some very warm days. When looking at the maximum high temperature during the month since records began the mean max is 98 degrees. The upcoming week will be no exception to the above.
During the day Monday an area of high pressure will begin to push east. Dew Points will climb into the mid and even upper 70s Monday through the later part of next week. This was noticed by incredibly high PWATS that were well exceeding 2”
I feel like I can better drive this point home if I define PWAT. PWAT stands for “precipitable water”. This is the amount of water that would accumulate if all the available moisture fell from a particular column of air. Referring to air as a “column” is arbitrary and something we usually did when I was in school in order to compute these things by hand. So, saying that PWATS are at or well above 2” is a simple way of saying “there’s a lot of moisture”. This goes together with the dew point since the dew point is the temperature the air would have to be cooled to in order to reach 100% saturation. The higher the dew point the more moisture that is present.
From here we move onto the heat index. As you probably know, heat indexfactors in the humidity and the air temperature and tells us the feels liketemperature as opposed to the air temperature.
Air temperatures will climb into the mid-90s next week so when we think about that and the upper 70 dew points, we’ll be talking about heat indices between 105-110 degrees.
With that type of heat in the forecast, it is imperative that everyone takes the dame safety precautions you would take if it were going to be very cold. Just in a different way of course.
First, most important, and probably the most common sense thing. Check the back seat of your car. With the outside temperature in the mid-90s the inside car temp. will climb quickly into the triple digits. Please reference the vehicle temps. chart.
Parents of athletes also should be checking with their schools’ athletic department on any procedures or rules in place when it comes to practices and games that take place. A good example is the chart which shows the rules that are in place for Madison County Schools.
Madison County Schools also tells us that as of Friday they have already reached out to coaches informing them of the policies in place.
