The National Weather Service is warning Tri-Cities residents be prepared for oppressive heat condition through the weekend and into Monday.
A high pressure ridge will be over the region for the next several days creating near record high temperatures Friday through Monday.
Making matters worse, moisture will increase and that combined with the high temperatures the humidity will produce oppressive heat.
Tri-Cities residents won't suffer the heat wave alone.
Local temperatures should be between 95 to 100 degrees.
That's a little cooler than the 100 to 105 readings expected in the Chattanooga area.
Forecasters recommend that residents be prepared for excessive heat during any outside activities planned for the weekend. The also suggest eliminating strenuous outdoor activities during the heat of the day.
Elsewhere, the AP reports that from Montana to Louisiana, hundreds of heat records have been slashed as harrowing temperatures leave cornfields parched and city sidewalks sizzling.
On Tuesday 251 new daily high temperature records were set, boosting to 1,015 the number of records set during the previous week. Many more records were expected to have been set Wednesday.
The consequences range from comical— a bacon-fried driveway in Oklahoma — to catastrophic, as wildfires consuming parts of the Rocky Mountains are fueled by oppressive heat and gusty winds.
The record-breaking numbers might seem big, but they're hard to put into context — the National Climatic Data Center has only been tracking the daily numbers broken for a little more than a year, said Derek Arndt, head of climate monitoring at the center.
Still, it's impressive, given that records usually aren't broken until the scorching months of July and August.
"Any time you're breaking all-time records in mid- to late-June, that's a healthy heat wave," Arndt said.
And if forecasts hold, more records could fall in the coming days in the central and western parts of the country and extend to the East Coast through the weekend.
Though it's been a week that could fry a person's soul — and their soles and hands, really anything exposed to the relentless sun — no matter where you are, the objective is the same: stay cool.
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