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Today: Becoming partly sunny, decreasing humidity. Isolated shower? Mid-80s. | Tonight: Partly cloudy & cooler. Near 60 to mid-60s. | Tomorrow: Mostly sunny, low humidity. Near 80. | A Look Ahead | Get Express Forecast by E-mail

A somewhat subjective rating of the day’s weather, on a scale of 0 to 10


A shower could still bother. But the big news is less heat & falling humidity. That’s 2 steps in right direction. Get the Digit on Twitter| Discuss on Facebook

Well we’ve weathered the season’s first heat wave and now it’s back to more typical temperatures for the next several days, though we’re still on the warm side today. Most important, exiting with the heat is that sweaty humidity, which goes super low for a spectacular day tomorrow. Despite drier air moving in, we still face the potential for a lingering shower today and more showers and thunderstorms late Friday.

Radar & lightning: Latest regional radar shows movement of precipitation and lightning strikes over past two hours. Refresh page to update. Click here or on image to enlarge. Or see radar bigger on our Weather Wall.

Today (Wednesday): Morning clouds and maybe an isolated shower (best chance south and east of D.C.) give way to partly sunny afternoon skies as highs reach the mid-80s. Even though drier air filters in during the day, we may still have enough moisture and energy left in the air for an isolated afternoon shower. Confidence: Medium

Tonight: Other than the chance of an isolated evening shower, it’s all about cooler and drier air. Lows are refreshing - near 60 to the mid-60s (suburbs to city) - beneath partly cloudy skies. Confidence: Medium-High

For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast through the weekend...

UPDATE, 9:00 p.m.: the Severe Thunderstorm Watch has been canceled, but heavy downpours continue along and east of I-95. The heaviest rains have relented west of I-95 and should decrease in the eastern suburbs by 10-11 p.m. Then light to moderate showers will fall before tapering off by 1-2 a.m. Although a Flash Flood Warning remains in effect around the District, amounts have generally been less than 1” and major problems are not anticipated.

UPDATE, 8:15 p.m.: Flash flood WARNING for Fairfax co, Falls Church, Arlington, DC, Montgomery & central PG co. thru 11:15. Very heavy rain moving in. 1-2” of rain possible in very short time span. Be very careful driving.

UPDATE, 8:00 p.m.: The Severe Thunderstorm Watch has been peeled back and no longer covers Frederick and Loudoun county and points north and west. However, a Flash Flood Warning has been issued for western Fairfax, western Prince William, southeast Loudoun, east central Fauquier counties and Manassas through 10:30 p.m. as storms with very heavy rain are moving through. Never drive thru flooded waters. Turn around, don’t drown.

UPDATE, 7:00 p.m.: The Severe Thunderstorm Watch now covers the entire metro region except for counties adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay. A strong line of storm stretch through the western half of Montgomery county through eastern Loudoun and into northern Fauquier county. It should move inside the beltway after 8 p.m. Heavy downpours, lightning and gusty winds are likely with this line of storms.

UPDATE, 4:45 p.m.: Severe Thunderstorm Watch for Loudoun, Fauquier, Frederick, Carroll counties and north and west (map) through 10 p.m.

Live Weather Updates from CWG’s Twitter Feed. Refresh for latest.

We’ve logged our second straight 90+ day but a cold front rumbling through the area over the next 24 hours favors no three-peat Wednesday. Said cold front will produce widespread showers and thunderstorms this evening, capable of producing strong winds, lightning and very heavy rain.

Radar & lightning: Latest D.C. area radar shows movement of precipitation and lightning strikes over past two hours. Refresh page to update. Click here or on image to enlarge. Or see radar bigger on our Weather Wall.

Through Tonight: Scattered strong to severe thunderstorms are likely well west and northwest of the District towards the mountains through early this evening. More widespread showers and storms then move into the immediate metro region as the evening wears on. Heavy downpours and lightning are likely widespread, especially between 7 and midnight. Isolated flash flooding cannot be ruled out. A few storms may contain damaging wind gusts and small hail.

After midnight, showers decrease in coverage and intensity, shifting east and northeast. Overnight lows range from 66-71 (suburbs-city).

Wednesday: An isolated shower or two is possible in the morning, especially along and east of I-95. Then the front clears and drier air slowly filters in. Partly to mostly sunny skies in the afternoon, with highs in the mid-to-upper 80s.

See Matt Rogers’ forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock.

Northeast severe thunderstorm outbreak: From southern Pennsylvania through Vermont, severe thunderstorm and tornado watches are in effect through this evening. Multiple reports of large hail to golf ball size (even one report of 3.5” hail, nearly grapefruit size!) have come in from storms in western New York and Vermont where several tornado warnings have also been issued. Links: Latest tornado warnings | thunderstorm warnings | Northeast regional radar

An hour and 20 minutes of video were compressed into 24 seconds. The sunrise occurred May 26, 2012. (Kevin Ambrose)

In the spirit of Memorial Day, I filmed a sunrise at the Marine Corps Memorial this past weekend. It was one of the more interesting sunrises I’ve seen from a weather perspective. Ground fog and low-level clouds moved rapidly to the north while mid-to-high-level clouds moved to the south. Meanwhile, the sun battled to shine through fleeting breaks in the overcast.

What made the sunrise shoot even more interesting was the Warrior Brotherhood Veterans Motorcycle Club who posed for a group photo at the Memorial while I was filming. They were participating in Rolling Thunder.

In time-lapse, the motorcycle club moves very quickly, in real-time they took about five-to-ten minutes to take their photos. It was quite fitting to include in a Memorial Day weekend video shoot.

See below for a longer version of the same sunrise.

ARLINGTON, VA - MAY 27: Navy veteran Jim Summers, 56 of St. Augustine, FL cools off in a spray shower while waiting to ride in the Memorial Day Rolling Thunder event at the Pentagon parking lot in Arlington, VA on May 27, 2012. (Linda Davidson - THE WASHINGTON POST)

* D.C. government issues “hyperthermia alert” due to heat index of 95, activates heat emergency plan *

When stifling heat and oppressive humidity smack us down mid-summer, it certainly poses a hazard. But this suffocating combination sucks the life out of us the most when it strikes early.

Take Memorial Day, for example. Temperatures reached 90 for the first time this year in Washington, D.C. and the heat index - what it feels like with the humidity - soared to the mid-90s. While that’s a pretty typical day in July, WJLA reports more than a dozen people around Washington, D.C. were hospitalized by these conditions.

An instructive infographic in the Post’s Health and Science section explains why our bodies are so taxed by the heat at this time of the year: “[their] best methods of coping with heat haven’t been tested in three seasons.”

On left, Jacksonville radar image from Sunday evening (UCAR) when tropical storm Beryl made landfall. On right, estimated 24-hour rainfall, ending Monday afternoon (National Weather Service)Former tropical storm Beryl barreled into Atlantic Beach, FL just after midnight Sunday night. With maximum sustained winds at 70 mph, it was the strongest tropical storm on record to make landfall in the U.S. before the official June 1 start of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Also noteworthy- when Beryl formed on May 25, it became the earliest second named storm of an Atlantic tropical season since records began in 1950.