Beyond The Forecast: Record-breaking start to hurricane season; what’s next?

Happy Monday! We’re almost a third of the way through the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and it’s certainly been active so far with eight named storms. Several of those storms made history as Cristobal, Edouard, Fay and Gonzalo were the earliest third, fifth, sixth and seventh-named storms on record.

You may have heard about Hurricane Hanna late last week and over the weekend. It was our first hurricane (and earliest eighth-named storm on record) and made landfall in Texas Saturday as a Category 1. The system has now weakened over Mexico and will dissipate soon.

We now turn our attention to the deep Atlantic, where a disturbance has a high probability of developing tropical characteristics in the next five days as it moves west-northwestward.

We’re likely to see this system get the name ‘Isaias’ (pronounced ees-ah-EE-ahs) and we’ll be watching for potential impacts to the Caribbean islands, Bahamas and eventually, the United States. High pressure centered over the central Atlantic appears to be the steering mechanism for this potential storm.

Here are the main takeaways for what could potentially become Isaias. We’ll let you know if we can expect any local impacts as we get a better idea of its track in the coming days.

In case you’re wondering, we’re still a few weeks away from the climatological peak of hurricane season. We typically see the biggest spike in activity during early September.

Switching gears to your local forecast, we expect Roanoke’s record-breaking heatwave to press on today, but there’s a chance we could break it by the end of July. Your Local Weather Authority meteorologist Chris Michaels has a look at what we can expect this week in our daily forecast article.

You can always get specific forecast details for your zone, whether it’s the Roanoke Valley, Southside, the Highlands, or elsewhere around southwest and central Virginia, anytime at WSLS.com/weather. Know your zone!

In case you missed it, we’re posting great weather content on WSLS.com. Here are a few links from the past week to check out:

• OUCH! Protect your pets’ paws on high heat days
• What the hail?! It’s been a decade since the largest hailstone on record fell

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-- Justin McKee