Oak Hill, WV (WOAY-TV): While early week temperatures outside are comfortable, inside your car is a different story and parents need to be extra vigilant while running routine errands.
Chief Meteorologist Chad Merrill has the story:
The temperature inside your car can warm at least 10 degrees in 10 minutes and reach well beyond 100 degrees. This is a deadly recipe for disaster if you leave your child or pet locked in the car while you are running errands.
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicate pediatric deaths by heatstroke from being left inside a car have dropped since 2019 as word spreads on the danger of checking the back seat before exiting the car. Prior to then, 25 to 53 children were dying each year from heatstroke in the back seat of a car.
A child’s body temperature rises 3 to 5 times faster than an adult. At 104 degrees, a child can suffer a heat stroke and by the time his or her body temperature reaches 107 degrees, death can occur. This year alone, 11 pediatric deaths were attributed to vehicular heatstroke, most in the Southeast, with a few in the Northwest and one in the northern Mid-Atlantic.
Keep in mind going through the summer, even on these cool, pleasant days with low humidity, that your car’s temperature automatically heats up beyond 100 degrees and to check the back seat every time you exit the vehicle. The last thing you want to happen is your pet or child dies from heatstroke inside your car.
WEATHER UPDATE
TONIGHT: Pleasant dew points will allow you to turn off the AC in your house and enjoy the comfy temperatures. Fog will not be as widespread as this morning.
WEDNESDAY: Hottest day of the year BUT the humidity will be tolerable, SO the heat index will be a few degrees COOLER than the air temperature.
THURSDAY: Showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening with an enhanced flash flood potential, especially in northern and western Fayette County where recent heavy rain triggered swollen creeks.
FRIDAY INTO THE WEEKEND: Lingering early showers will give way to dry weather. The weekend will be half and half with a few showers and storms late Saturday and dry weather on Sunday.
EARLY NEXT WEEK: Occasional showers Monday and early Tuesday will give way to a slightly cooler midweek pattern, before a dose of high heat and humidity return.
