MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As temperatures rise, the ABC24 weather team will be using the newest data from the National Weather Service to help keep you informed.
The map that you see below is a new forecast called Heat Risk and is something we will be incorporating into the forecast this Summer here at ABC24. It is a forecast that is designed to be more than just the heat and humidity and will be a great tool to talk about heat impacts.
While we often talk about temperature and heat index in the Summer, this new tool takes into account these things along with other considerations. The first is how rare the heat actually is for that specific time of the year. There then is the length or duration of the heat. This specifically looks at the length of a heatwave but also if our nights are warm as well. The most important thing Heat Risk looks at is CDC data. This takes the historical context of how heat impacts people's health locally and is great for forecasting potential impacts.
That’s a lot, but thankfully we can easily turn this into a scale going from 0 to 4.
Heat really becomes a concern for us at level 2 when groups like the elderly will see impacts with levels 3 and 4 impacting anybody without a way to cool down.
If we look at the next few days we will likely be in the middle 90s. With increased humidity on Saturday it looks like we will be sitting at a level 3 or Major heat risk here in the Mid-South.
We will show you these numbers in the forecast this Summer along with these risk maps to keep you cool and prepared in the months ahead.