Heat, humidity to make comeback in Northeast late this week

Following last week's prolonged stretch of heat and humidity in much of the Northeast, lower temperatures and humidity levels arrived over the past weekend and persisted into the beginning of this week. However, forecasters say that is likely to change by later this week.

While disturbances in the atmosphere caused showers and thunderstorms over parts of New England on Monday and Tuesday, many residents and visitors to the Northeast have enjoyed tolerable temperatures and humidity levels during what is typically the hottest time of the year. The pattern will soon begin to resemble something more typical for this time of the year, and this change will become quite noticeable with an increase in temperatures and humidity into this weekend.

"High pressure will build across the southeast United States during the balance of this week, ushering heat currently across the southern Great Plains east to parts of the East Coast," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Matt Benz. "While the mercury will be climbing for many locations, the humidity will be on the rise thanks to southerly flow transporting moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic."

However, this change back to more typical summertime weather will be delayed in some areas. As the warmer and more humid air arrives, this will help lead to the development of showers and thunderstorms, and after some storms were gusty on Thursday, heavy downpours may accompany some of the storms to end the week.

While New England had to deal with showers and thunderstorms early this week due to disturbances moving through the area, the threat will expand to other areas on Friday and even into this coming weekend.

"The weather pattern is also expected to turn more active for a widespread area of the Northeast as the jet stream remains parked across southern Canada," Benz said. "The combination of heat and humidity along with energy moving through should provide better chances for rain at times through early next week, which is good news for many areas that have missed out on the rain so far this summer," Benz explained.

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Even though humidity will return to many locations by the end of the week, the high pressure is not likely to build into northern New England until this weekend. Therefore, it will likely take until Saturday or Sunday for the entire region to experience temperatures above normal.

"The hottest weather of the summer is poised to strike portions of the eastern Ohio Valley, central Appalachians and mid-Atlantic during Sunday and Monday," according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. "Temperatures could reach 100 F in part of this area by early next week."

This pattern of higher heat and humidity along with daily chances of showers and thunderstorms is likely to then continue into next week, particularly in those more northern locations.

A similar setup could even continue to be in place into the last weekend of July.

The places that manage to dodge soaking downpours in the coming days may have the best chance at reaching the century mark as the dry ground will allow the landscape to behave more like a desert with rapidly rising temperatures during the daylight hours.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.