Heat wave -- no let up until next week

Jim Bissett, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
·2 min read

Jun. 17—Summer doesn't officially start until Thursday, but by the thermometer's reckoning, the season is already coming in like a hair dryer.

Temperatures are expected to stay parked in the 90s all week — AccuWeather is calling for a high of 96 today, in fact — and a heat advisory is on until Friday for Morgantown and the surrounding region.

The Mountain State isn't the only one feeling the effects of the first heat wave of the soon-to-be summer.

Several other locales across the U.S. are languishing in the same conditions. That's not making Tim Nurkiewicz breathe any easier these days — and he isn't the only one, either.

That's all of us, the director of WVU's Center for Inhalation Toxicology said.

As it turns out, we breathe, well, differently, during heat waves, he said. Deeper and more often.

Our bodies, the air quality expert said, are kicking in their own thermo-cooling cycles, which is generally pretty efficient, on the physiology index side of things.

And not so healthy.

Why ?

One simply isn't breathing more air, he said.

One is breathing polluted air, with ground-level ozone — the kind generated by your car's exhaust pipe — being one of the worst offenders.

"It just settles down and you take it in, " he said, of the pollutant.

"Which isn't good, if you have something chronic, like asthma or cardiovascular disease."

Don't think your lungs will get a reprieve just by taking to your air-conditioned living room, Nurkiewicz said.

Pollution, he said, doesn't play favorites.

Indoor air, he said, can be fouled by cooking — or by a furnace filter that needs cleaned.

A good start for lung vigilance, the professor said, comes by way of the Air Quality Index, which may be accessed online at airnow.gov /aqi /.

Meanwhile, the air outside is still percolating, said Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.

Look for a high of 96 today, he said, and the swelter isn't expected to let up until next week, when the mercury finally eases back down to the 80s.

Thermal inversions, those weather patterns that rest on top of each other like an atmospheric layer cake, are doing just that — over West Virginia and much of the northeast, the meteorologist said.

The heat is also making itself at home, Roys said.

Summer's first day on Thursday could bring highs of 97, he said, to go with that 98-degree prediction for Friday.

By Monday, though, the wave could break. AccuWeather is calling for a high of 86 that day, with thunderstorms.