The first full week of meteorological fall ushers in record heat, with over 200 cities across America flirting with or setting new record-high temperatures through the weekend.
Twenty-two cities set record highs on Tuesday from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan to Raleigh, North Carolina to Millinockett, Maine. More than 210 million of us will be feeling the heat Wednesday too.
The first day of school on Tuesday was a short one for kids in Philadelphia. Administrators announced early dismissal due to the extreme heat and no air conditioning.
Baltimore City, Maryland, issued a Code Red Heat Alert through Thursday. Washington, D.C., hit 97 and tied a high-temperature record that has held for 142 years on Tuesday.
New York opened cooling centers. The city averages only one day in the 90s every September.
There won’t be much relief the rest of the week as the upper 90s will bake much of the region through Thursday. These temperatures will threaten some all-time September heat records.
Thankfully, humidity levels are forecast to be in check to save the region from widespread heat alerts for unhealthy, feels-like temperatures.
“The worst of the record heat will be in Virginia and Maryland where triple-digit heat is possible,” said the FOX Forecast Center. “Most cities across the Mid-Atlantic will come up short of their all-time hottest temperature for the month of September, but top five is likely for major cities like Baltimore and DC.”
Relief is on the way, though. A cold front, currently sweeping through the Northern Plains, is forecast to bring weekend temperatures back down to seasonal norms.
Records galore are falling across the South and will continue into the weekend. A ridge of high pressure, which one FOX Weather regular contributor Paul Walsh, dubbed the “heat dome of doom,” is back after a short break from the heat last week. That will pump extreme heat into the region starting Thursday.
So far this year, several cities have racked up more than a month of record-high days:
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Del Rio, Texas: 42 record hot days
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Corpus Christi, Texas: 32 record hot days
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New Orleans, Louisiana: 33 record hot days and tallied up 13, 100+ degree days. The old record was just 5 in 1980. The airport also hit 102 recently, tying the record high set in 1980.
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Baton Rouge, Louisiana: 33 record hot days, setting the longest triple-digit streak of 10 days. The city set a new summer average temperature record of 87.4, blowing away the old record from 2011 by more than three degrees.
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Houston currently trails the record triple-digit streak of 24 days in 2011. But 2023 is in second place with a 16-day stretch. August 22 only hit 97 degrees, breaking the streak.
Austin has seen 47 consecutive days over 100 degrees.
ERCOT, Texas’ energy supplier, issued a Weather Watch through Saturday.
“College Station, Texas, for this summer alone, just taking us through the last three months or so, we’ve seen 59 days where we’ve had temperatures at or above 100 degrees,” said Meteorologist Kiyana Lewis. “And we also saw a streak of 50 days consecutively where we had those temperatures at or above triple digits. And we don’t see that really ending anytime soon.”
Detroit school kids also have an early dismissal on Tuesday. Minneapolis, through La Crosse, Wisconsin, were under Heat Advisories, but that comes to an end.
Cooling relief is here; A cold front swept through Tuesday evening, ushering in cooler, crisper air. The battle between the hot/humid and cooler/dry air masses, though, will net storms, possibly severe Tuesday and early Wednesday.

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