For most of the summer, there has not been severe heat in the eastern half of the United States, but that could change by early next week, according to Salomon Smith Barney Meteorologist Jon Davis. With the presence of significant heat to trigger increased power generation for cooling demand in the Northeast, the strong tide of weekly storage injections could weaken a little.

The change involves a ridge of high pressure, which has been bouncing around the Southwest for about a month. That ridge is expected to move over the western plains and Rockies later this week, bringing 100-degree temperatures. Later into the week it is expected to grow, eventually stretching all the way across the middle of the country to the Mid-Atlantic seaboard, according to Davis. The National Weather Service’s six- to 10-day forecast also shows above normal temperatures across the entire country east of the Rockies, except for the Florida peninsula.

“The reason this is noteworthy is that so far this summer there has not been any ridging east of the Mississippi River as it has always been either in Missouri or New Mexico or somewhere in between,” he said. “This broad ridging means that more of the country is going to turn warmer than normal during the week of July 30… As a result, parts of the eastern United States will, for the first time this summer, be influenced by a ridge of high pressure. Whether this feature lasts only a short amount of time or is the start of a more extended stretch which lasts a few weeks is very difficult to determine at this time.”

Although it will be warmer than normal east of the Mississippi next week, Davis said he does not expect record-breaking temperatures.

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