Keep the faith ... heat wave will break

We've been promising an end to the heat wave for several days, and it appears to be on schedule ... pretty much.

As we've been saying, today (Sunday) will be the last full day of the stifling heat. And Sunday's conditions might turn out to be among the worst. At noon, Charlotte's temperature was 96 degrees, and humidity levels were higher than in recent days. The heat index was 103 degrees.

It appears likely that we'll see heat indices near 110 degrees in places near Charlotte later Sunday afternoon. That's about as bad as last Sunday, which was perhaps the worst day of the current streak of miserably hot days.

But the cold front that will bring a change to the weather is being pushed southward by high pressure in Canada.

That cooler, dry high pressure system won't take control of our weather.  Those nice conditions will be reserved for areas north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But the front will stall somewhere near the North Carolina-Virginia border, and that will be enough to bring a change.

Monday will be the day of change. It will start hot once again, and temperatures probably will soar into the middle 90s by early afternoon. But the front is expected to be pushing ever closer Monday, and thunderstorms likely will develop shortly after noon in the mountains and push into the foothills and Piedmont. The Monday evening commute could be a stormy one.

And that will set the stage for what could be five straight days of humid, wet, stormy weather.

Tuesday through Saturday certainly won't be wash-outs.  There will be sunshine each day, but the sun will only serve to help stir the atmosphere. And with the stalled cold front nearby, a stirred-up atmosphere will trigger the development of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening.

Additional showers and storms will be set off by the passage of weak low pressure systems each day. Those could bring precipitation in the overnight or morning hours.

Daytime high temperatures will be a lot cooler, probably only reaching the mid 80s most days. Don't look for cool nights, though. We'll still be in the humid air on the south side of the cold front, so morning lows won't fall much below the low 70s. And humidity levels will be very high.

National Weather Service forecasters still think most of the area will get an inch or more of rain this week, and some places could get quite a bit more.

The strong high pressure system responsible for our scorching, mostly rain-free weather the past 10 days will retreat westward, bringing hot weather to the Rockies and High Plains. That system could push back eastward again later in July, so we're certainly not out of the woods, when it comes to the heat.

But this week will be a nice break.