Unseasonably hot weather on its way to region

ELKINS – Residents expecting cooler temperatures this week, with the calendar officially turning to the month of September, will have to wait a little longer, as midweek 90-degree days are in the forecast.   

Elkins and the surrounding area will see a string of hot temperatures and high humidity beginning on Wednesday and carrying over into Thursday, according to the National Weather Service in Charleston. 

“We are going to have some heat in the Elkins area this week, with Wednesday probably being the hottest day,” Ray Young, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Charleston, told The Inter-Mountain on Monday. “For the Elkins area, it’s going to be getting into the lower 90s on both Wednesday and Thursday, and there are going to be some heat indexes with some of the humidity.

“It looks like there will be some heat indexes probably in the mid-90s for the Elkins area,” Young said, noting that it’s not uncommon for there to still be some high temperatures during the month of September.   

“This is the time of the year when the weather can go either way,” Young said. “You can have the heat into September or you can have cold fronts coming through. It varies a lot this time of year. Typically, out of the dog days, which we really didn’t have much of this year, it can be quite warmer in late August and early September.”     

After two straight days of heat and humidity, the weather will make a significant change on Friday, Young said.     

“There’s actually going to be a cold front coming through Thursday night and into Friday,” he noted. “And there’s probably going to be some showers and the potential for severe thunderstorms. But that will allow it to cool down a little bit toward the weekend. We are looking at Saturday’s highs in the lower 80s, and the upper 70s on Sunday.”     

Young said it doesn’t appear that the weather for the rest of the month of September will be out of the ordinary for Elkins and the surrounding area. 

“Right now it looks like we are at equal chances of it being above or below normal,” Young said. “There are no strong trends showing in either precipitation or temperature for September.”