Recent heat wave ends this weekend; even cooler next week

Anyone that has been hoping for a break from the heat and humidity is in luck!

Temperature trend next five days (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

ROANOKE, Va. – There’s no question about it: we’ve been quite hot the past week or so in our corner of the Commonwealth.

In fact, Roanoke and Lynchburg made a little history on Friday by recording lows of 75 degrees. It was a new record for the Star City and a tied record for the Hill City (the old records dating back to 2011 and 1931, respectively).

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By our definition of a heat wave (consecutive days of 90-degree heat or higher), it’s been seven days since either city felt any relief. While this doesn’t measure up to last July’s heat wave, it’s still an above-average one for our region.

Heat wave stats for Roanoke and Lynchburg (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

I’m here to tell you that this recent heat wave will be snapped this weekend! All five of our zones are looking at the 80s for highs today.

We like to feature some small towns on the weekend morning editions of Virginia Today. Let us know if you want your community to be featured! Here’s this morning’s shoutout.

Small town shoutout - Saturday (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

If any locations beat the odds and do hit 90 degrees today, I believe the heat wave will certainly be snapped on Sunday. Our forecast highs range from the upper 70s to mid 80s tomorrow.

We’ll have a front in the vicinity which will bring some showers, especially in the morning.

What we're tracking - Sunday 6 a.m. (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

Drier conditions return later in the day Sunday into Monday. Another system could bring more widespread rain by Tuesday.

What we're tracking - Tuesday 12 p.m. (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

The higher rain chances Tuesday will be accompanied by some of the coolest air we’ve felt in months. If our forecast high of 76 degrees verifies, it would be the coolest high in Roanoke since May 31!

Tuesday temperatures to be below-average (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

We’ll stay below-average for highs through the rest of the work week, with low storm chances each day.