Heat wave ends in East with a bang of thunder
The sweltering misery is coming to an end for the East, but it came with a noisy bang of thunderstorms later Monday. At the same time, the heat will begin to crank up in parts of the West.
“The dangerous heat wave which enveloped much of the Midwest to the East Coast is finally breaking on Monday as a front drops southward across parts of the East,” the National Weather Service said. “Showers and thunderstorms will accompany this boundary from the Northeast to the southern Plains with heavy to excessive rainfall and severe weather possible.”
Flash flooding is a concern from the Appalachians to the Mid-Atlantic because of the heavy rain. Nearly 50 million people live where flash floods were possible Monday.
Severe storms were expected from southern New England into the MidAtlantic, the Weather Channel said. “The main threats from these storms will be damaging wind gusts and hail. An isolated tornado also cannot be ruled out,” it said.
At the height of the heat wave on Friday, about 195 million people were under an excessive-heat watch or warning or a heat advisory, CNN said. Alerts stretched from New Mexico to Maine.
The heat was blamed for at least two deaths in Chicago and a large power failure in New York City that left tens of thousands without electricity.
While the East cools off, portions of the western U.S. will start to bake. Temperatures will crank up east of the Cascades toward the northern Rockies, AccuWeather said. Heat alerts were in effect for 15 million people in portions of Nevada, Idaho and Utah.
The heat and low humidity also will create a high fire danger: Dry conditions, combined with the heat and localized winds, can create a conducive environment for any spark to ignite and quickly spread into a wildfire, AccuWeather warned.