Dangerous heat settles in Alabama

Published 11:13 pm Friday, June 29, 2012

High temperatures across the state are doing more than causing people to stay indoors and increasing summer electric bills; they’re breaking many statewide weather records.

The National Weather Service projects temperatures to be more than 100 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday in Selma, peaking at 104 degrees Saturday and 103 degrees Sunday.

Mark Rose, a meteorologist with NWS Weather Forecast Office in Birmingham, said he expected several locations across the state to reach record highs over the next couple of days.

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“A lot of places in central Alabama have an all-time record high of something like 106, 107 degrees,” Rose said. “So as we get into the weekend, I expect that we’re going to be approaching those values.”

Rose said he recommends that everyone stay indoors between noon and 6 p.m. while the temperatures remain high. Typically, the warmest temperatures happen between 3 and 6 p.m., he said.

“One good thing is, if you’re going to be outside, it certainly helps to be close to a body of water — a pool, a river, a lake — that you can get in because that’s definitely a good place to be with temperatures this hot because your body temperature can get cooled off pretty quickly,” Rose said. “If you’re not fortunate enough to be near a body of water, we just really recommend, if you can, to stay indoors during the hottest part of the day.”

The good news, Rose said, is that he doesn’t expect the record high temperatures to stick around for the entire summer.

“These patterns typically last maybe a week or less,” he said. “They’ll move back down to the low-to-mid 90s. This is one of the more extreme events we’ve had in a while.”