If you enjoy hot and sticky weather, you’re in luck.
That’s exactly what hit the region Thursday and will stick around Friday and over the weekend, according to the the National Weather Service.
Though temperatures in the high 90s are relatively common for the Valley this time of the year, a heat index above 100 is much more rare.
But that’s just what the region is in the midst of, which has prompted the National Weather service to issue a heat advisory between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday. A similar advisory was issued on Thursday when temperatures reached 95 F.
The heat index is a way to describe how hot it actually feels outside. The index is calculated based on a combination of temperature and humidity, which is determined by dew point, said meteorologist Lenore Correia of the National Weather Service.
High humidity will continue into Friday and the weekend, Correia said, due to a chance of scattered showers through Tuesday, and will reach nearly 100 percent for the weekend.
“We don’t tend to get humidity like that out here,” Correia said. “It really just has to be the perfect conditions. A couple things have to match up.”
Temperatures get into the 90s in the Valley at least every year or couple of years, Correia said, because heat gets trapped in the lower air.
Right now, a perfect storm of factors is concocting the high heat index. Massachusetts gets southerly winds, Correia said, that could be converging with a front to the north, causing the sweltering conditions.
Residents should stay inside and drink as much water as possible over the weekend, Correia advised.
“Be sure not to be outside too long, because you could get heat exhaustion pretty quickly with these temperatures,” Correia said.
Weather will transition slightly into the weekend, when there’s a chance of scattered showers, but it will only be “ever so slightly cooler,” Correia said.
Friday will see highs in the low-90s rather than the mid-90s, and Saturday’s temperatures will climb.
There’s a low risk of thunderstorms over the weekend, Correia said, but they are possible. Showers are expected to continue Friday through Tuesday, and temperatures are expected to go down next week, settling in the mid-80s.