Conditions right for scary weather

From a sizzling scorcher in the South to severe storms in the East and Mid-atlantic, a “ring of fire” weather pattern will bring summer weather hazards to more than 40 million Americans for the first part of this week.

Heat alerts stretch more than a thousand miles from San Angelo, Texas, to Jacksonville, Florida, a region where heat indices could top 110 degrees in spots.

Areas that lie beneath a big, sprawling ridge of high pressure will bake, while clockwise winds around the high’s edges will slingshot periodic severe thunderstorms around its periphery. For those along the edge, it’s a one-two punch — a setup that begins for some with oppressive heat and humidity, and could end with damaging storms.

Sauna weather is in the offing for people in more than a dozen states, the heat dome spanning from the I-35 corridor in Texas all the way to the East Coast.

In Dallas, the mercury is forecast to soar to 103 degrees Tuesday, the hottest temperature there since July of last year. Dallas-ft. Worth International Airport hit the century mark on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In Galveston, the heat index remained above 100 degrees for an astonishing 41 hours late last week, the sultry conditions relentless even in the dead of night.

The residents of Orange, Texas, about 115 miles west of Houston near the Gulf of Mexico, started their workweek on a not-so-pleasant note: The heat index had spiked to 111 degrees before 9 a.m. Monday, thanks to an extreme dew point of 83 degrees. The technical meteorological term for that is “yuck.”

What sets this heat wave apart from most is how humid the air is, which impedes people’s ability to cool themselves through sweating.