By Rick Dandes
The Daily Item
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SUNBURY — Blistering heat is expected to bake the region for another three days before a cooling air mass provides relief this weekend, said a meteorologist on Monday.
“The weather pattern is exactly the same now as it was in early July, when we had a record-breaking heat wave,” said Andy Mussoline, of AccuWeather in State College.
There is a stable ridge of high pressure over central Pennsylvania that will bring bright, intense sunshine and dry conditions through Friday, with daytime temperatures steady at 93 degrees. Nightly lows will be in the 60s, Mussoline added.
The all-time high for this date in history is 100 degrees in 1953; it was also 100 degrees on Sept. 1, 1953.
“We won’t approach those highs,” Mussoline said. “By the weekend, with a cold front moving in, temperatures should cool off to the 70s.”
August, he said, averaged 71.8 at the Penn Valley Airport in Selinsgrove, slightly above the normal temperature for August, 70.7 degrees.
Mussoline noted that the three hurricanes currently approaching the U.S. mainland should not pose any problems for central Pennsylvania, “not even rain.”
“But Hurricane Earl could affect anyone planning to travel to the East Coast this weekend,” he said.
The hurricane will be a category 3 storm as it approaches Cape Hatteras, N.C., on Thursday, and could touch Cape Cod, Mass., by Friday.
“The hurricane could possibly hug the coast,” Mussoline said.
Those planning a trip to Philadelphia, New York or Boston should keep an eye on local weather reports, he suggested.
