00:21 - The Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric

00:25 - Science at Penn State. This is Weather World.

00:30 - Good evening and welcome to Weather World.

00:32 - It's June 30th, 2026. I'm Caitlin Cary, joined

00:35 - here today by Bill Syrett. Now, Bill, the

00:36 - story everyone is talking about is that sticky

00:38 - heat out there that we're going to experience.

00:41 - What kind of conditions are we expecting the

00:43 - next couple of days? Yeah, it's not just going

00:45 - to be hot. It's going to be sticky. And the

00:47 - humidity will build actually the next couple

00:49 - of days and heat indices will be pretty

00:51 - darn high, especially in the southeastern

00:53 - cities. Yeah. Quite the warm welcome for July.

00:55 - Well thank you Bill. We'll hear more from you

00:57 - about that in just a minute. Also coming up

00:59 - on tonight's show, it's Weather Camp week here

01:01 - at Penn State. So we'll take a look back at

01:03 - the 25th anniversary of Weather Camp. But first,

01:06 - here's Bill. Thanks very much, Katie. And we

01:09 - will start by looking at the four corners of

01:11 - Pennsylvania. Notice the sky and eerie clear.

01:14 - Wilkes-Barre is much more hazy. Could be camera

01:16 - angle as well, but the humidity is fairly high

01:19 - across the state. Pittsburgh Some nice fair

01:22 - weather, cumulus clouds and reading. Also quite

01:25 - the hazy sky. If we look down from above, you can see scattered cumulus clouds across

01:30 - the Commonwealth. Some very light showers passed by, most of them dried up before

01:34 - reaching the ground this morning. There are some big boomers in New York State. Some

01:39 - of them will strafe north, strafe northeastern Pennsylvania this evening, and

01:44 - there could be an isolated shower in that part of the state anytime. But most of us

01:50 - will stay dry tonight. Dew points. This is one thing you've heard a lot about. When

01:55 - they get over 70, it is oppressively humid and the western two thirds of the.

02:00 - Commonwealth experiencing that that humid air is progressing eastward. So this this

02:07 - relatively comfortable air in southeastern Pennsylvania will disappear come tomorrow.

02:12 - Temperatures also high. They're not incredibly

02:14 - high yet, but you're over 90 in Pittsburgh,

02:16 - upper 80s to near 90 across much of the rest of the Commonwealth. These will only

02:22 - go up the next couple of days widening out.

02:25 - Um kind of a stealth heat wave we're getting

02:27 - into. You can't see any really, really

02:29 - incredibly hot air to our west. This upper level

02:32 - ridge is going to build kind of right over us,

02:34 - and the heat will develop and center itself

02:37 - over Pennsylvania come Thursday and Friday, but

02:39 - still pretty warm out there. Temperatures in

02:41 - the 90s across the Plains states and out west. Still a little chilly, although it's

02:46 - warming up from the past couple of days where

02:49 - there was high elevation snow. Upper level

02:52 - pattern shows a typical stratus clouds in the

02:54 - Pacific. Very little precipitation out there.

02:57 - Diurnal thunderstorms over the Rockies, big

03:00 - Bermuda, high pumping in humid air, but not a

03:03 - lot of lift with it. So there's not many clouds.

03:05 - And that will also end up leading to the heat.

03:07 - You can see thunderstorms going around the top

03:09 - of that ridge, and they will be diving into.

03:11 - New England for the next few days. But I think most of Pennsylvania will end up

03:15 - staying dry. Weather map shows that Bermuda

03:19 - high building and that will be our controller of

03:22 - the weather the next couple of days. Cold air

03:25 - to the west. Not going to get here for several

03:28 - days. Not in my forecast period anyway. Put

03:30 - this into motion. The high kind of stays put

03:32 - winds out of the southwest coming between

03:34 - that high and the low pressure to the north.

03:37 - Go ahead another day. Not a heck of a lot

03:39 - of change. The high pressure actually builds

03:41 - just a little bit more. A few showers from

03:44 - time to time. But missing Pennsylvania, I think

03:47 - in Thursday probably will be a dry day. So

03:49 - tonight, very warm for this time of year and for

03:51 - any time of year because this is the warmest

03:54 - time of year. Temperatures probably staying

03:56 - in the mid to upper 70s in Erie with a light

03:58 - southerly breeze. Mid 70s in Pittsburgh, low 70s

04:01 - across much of the rest of the state. You have to be in the higher elevations or in.

04:04 - Allentown, where the air is just a little bit drier, allowing the temperature to

04:08 - drop into the upper 60s. Cumulus clouds

04:11 - will crumble early. We'll have cirrus clouds

04:14 - from time to time, but again, no rain for most

04:17 - except for an isolated thunderstorm in the.

04:20 - Poconos. Uh, tomorrow or from tomorrow noon on, there is going to be extreme heat

04:25 - warning across southeastern Pennsylvania and

04:28 - southwestern Pennsylvania, heat advisories

04:31 - where it won't be quite as dangerous. And then Somerset County, dominated by high

04:36 - elevation, stays out of the excitement for

04:38 - this particular heat wave. At least for now.

04:41 - The weather service may update these with

04:43 - time. So tomorrow heat cranks up. It's 95 in

04:45 - Pittsburgh, mid low to mid 90s in the central

04:47 - counties, mid to upper 90s in the southeast.

04:49 - Isolated rumbles in southeastern

04:51 - Pennsylvania. Dry for much of us in the west.

04:54 - Heat indices getting up over 100 in the

04:56 - southeast. And then Thursday the heat peaks over

04:59 - 100 degrees in the southeastern towns, with

05:03 - heat indices about 110 mid to upper 90s for the

05:11 - rest of us. We'll be back with more in just a minute.

05:34 - We are officially in a rain delay. A thunderstorm

05:38 - during a baseball game would dampen the

05:43 - mood of most summer camps. But this is not just any camp. Although it got canceled, I

05:49 - think the storm moving in was way more fun

05:51 - than the actual game. For 25 years, Penn State

05:54 - has been uniting kids with an admiration

05:58 - for the atmosphere and an excitement for the

06:02 - extremes at weather camps. Paul Knight and I

06:04 - were talking about starting a get together for

06:06 - kids interested in weather, since neither one of us had experienced that when we were

06:13 - growing up until college. Since beginning in

06:16 - 2001, kids have traveled near and far for the

06:19 - weather camp experience. All told, there have

06:22 - been roughly 1400 campers from 40 states,

06:24 - Puerto Rico and several countries, including the Bahamas. Most people don't

06:30 - really care about the weather that much, at

06:32 - least in in North Carolina. So it's good to meet

06:34 - people that have the same interests. I've been into weather since I did live in

06:42 - Edmond, Oklahoma for almost all my life, and I

06:44 - moved to Texas five years ago. And from then I

06:46 - started getting into weather forecasting. I admire those kids. I don't think I could

06:53 - have done that kind of travel and being away

06:56 - from home, um, as, as they are doing, the

06:58 - camps began with a couple dozen students each

07:02 - year. But in 2010, organizers expanded the

07:05 - capacity to 74, offering two different versions

07:07 - every summer. The four day weather camp is

07:10 - more basic and geared towards younger students.

07:13 - Grades eight through ten. Meanwhile, the

07:16 - five day advanced weather camp is for students

07:19 - grades 11 and 12 who are nearing or in the

07:22 - college hunt. I specifically took this camp to

07:25 - kind of get a better idea exactly what I want

07:28 - to do, and I was so thankful that now I'm

07:31 - confident about what I'm going to major in and

07:34 - then possibly have a career in. 1 in 5 weather

07:37 - campers go on to later enroll in Penn State's.

07:39 - Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric

07:42 - Science. Like our very own Karl Schneider, he

07:45 - attended Weather camp in 2014, enrolled as an

07:47 - undergrad just a few years later, stayed for

07:50 - grad school, and is now teaching faculty. Just one example of the many weather

07:55 - campers who go on to find success in all

07:58 - areas of the weather and climate enterprise.

08:01 - It's gratifying. I mean, I can't take

08:04 - credit because they could have gone on to be

08:07 - successful without any weather camp. But but

08:09 - it's fun to see just knowing how how they were

08:11 - and how they've matured and still have a

08:14 - passion for meteorology, I think it's great.

08:16 - While the specifics on the regular and advanced

08:19 - Weather Camp itineraries may vary a bit,

08:21 - the collaborative learning experiences are

08:24 - the same. One of the most popular activities

08:26 - is the Daily Forecast contest. I think my favorite part is doing the forecast in the

08:31 - morning. Um, I just like looking at all the data and stuff and predicting what I

08:37 - thought was going to be going to happen throughout

08:40 - the week. I had previously just looked at

08:43 - 1 or 2 models and I didn't know what wind shear

08:45 - was. I didn't know what storm boundaries were.

08:48 - There were a bunch of people here who were

08:50 - nice enough to teach me the basics about it,

08:53 - but it just shows me that I have a lot left

08:55 - to learn. Uh, it doesn't at all sway me away

08:57 - from the idea of being a meteorologist. In fact, it makes me want to be even more

09:01 - because of the challenges that it brings and

09:04 - the sense of accomplishment when you get a

09:06 - forecast right over the course of a week. Campers

09:09 - benefit from interactions with experts in.

09:11 - Penn State's renowned faculty and meteorology,

09:13 - geography, geoscience, and electrical

09:15 - engineering, covering everything from chasing tornadoes to space, weather and

09:21 - our changing climate, all while living on a

09:23 - college campus. It was relieving because sometimes

09:26 - I'm like, this is such a crazy thing that I

09:28 - stare at a storm and get all excited. But not

09:30 - only that, I go research about it. And then

09:33 - I realize that there's so many people who are

09:35 - exactly like me, but I also get along with

09:39 - them. And they're not just like people who I

09:42 - don't even know, I guess aren't normal. Probably

09:45 - being able to explore the campus with a bunch

09:48 - of people that I got to know and be friends

09:51 - with. The campus is really nice here. The walk

09:53 - wasn't too long from where we stayed, and

09:56 - I'd highly suggest coming here for a taste of

09:59 - weather broadcasting. The campers not only attend tapings of Weather World here in the

10:04 - band family studios, they also get to record

10:07 - their own weather forecasts. In addition to

10:09 - having access to Penn State's faculty and

10:11 - facilities, the weather camps benefit from the

10:14 - sheer number of career meteorologists in State College, taking field trips to both.

10:18 - National Weather Service and AccuWeather during the week long event. The tours were

10:23 - really cool. I really liked the National Weather

10:26 - Service and AccuWeather. I thought it was

10:28 - really cool to see all the equipment that they use. Definitely touring AccuWeather

10:32 - because I got so many great connections and advice about exactly what I want to do. I

10:38 - liked going to AccuWeather. That was cool and I liked tracking Hurricane Eric. No

10:43 - matter the year, the Weather Camp forecast always calls for fun, from weather balloon

10:47 - launches to hikes, bowling and baseball games, there are plenty of opportunities to

10:53 - forge connections and create lasting friendships.

10:56 - Meeting everyone is. Everyone is super

10:58 - nice. It's super easy to make friends and they all have the same interests. I came to

11:05 - weather camp. I mean to meet the people that

11:07 - have the same interests as me. Yeah, I've

11:10 - made a lot of good friends. As most

11:12 - meteorologists and self-proclaimed weather weenies

11:14 - will tell you, the bug bit them when they

11:17 - were young, and that's where Weather Camp has

11:20 - come in for the past 25 years. No matter the

11:23 - changing faces, facilities, and forecasting

11:25 - tools, it's still cultivating a passion and fostering friendships. Just ask Bill.

11:30 - Syrett. He's helped with each and every

11:33 - camp. Yeah, that passion has stayed the same

11:36 - among the campers, I'd say. I think

11:38 - attending weather camp for kids interested in

11:40 - meteorology especially, gives them an idea of

11:44 - what they're going to need to be proficient

11:47 - in, um, to make their college transition

11:50 - easier. Whether they go to Penn State or not is

11:53 - irrelevant, but they'll have a picture of

11:57 - what to expect and also an idea that there are

12:00 - people like them outside that they'll be working

12:03 - with. And they can, they can follow their

12:05 - passion and be successful. For more information

12:08 - about how to register for next year's

12:10 - weather camps, heads up. They fill fast. Check

12:14 - out this QR code or visit the Penn State.

12:22 - Weather Camp Facebook page for Weather World. I'm Rob Lydick.

12:31 - A little too much bill for my liking, but

12:32 - let's get to the weather tonight. Warm, muggy,

12:34 - uncomfortable. Probably a lot of people should

12:37 - keep their air conditioning on. Temperatures

12:39 - staying in the 70s for most of the highest elevations get into the 60s, southeastern

12:42 - Pennsylvania, also in the 70s, where there's

12:45 - a slight chance in the eastern parts of the

12:48 - state of a thunderstorm this evening and tonight on Wednesday, again, any isolated

12:52 - thunderstorms, which could be heavy because of all the humidity and heat, will be

12:55 - confined to eastern Pennsylvania. I think with temperatures in the mid 90s

13:00 - there, central and western Pennsylvania in the low to mid 90s, it will still be humid.

13:05 - Heat indices will climb to dangerous levels in the southeastern cities especially.

13:09 - And then on Thursday, temperatures go over 100 in southeastern Pennsylvania. Heat

13:15 - indices up to 110. Excessive heat warning is in effect for the next few days by the

13:20 - weather. National Weather Service and people

13:21 - need to take it easy if they go outside come

13:23 - Thursday. Yeah, definitely want to take any necessary precautions. If you're heading

13:27 - out into that heat over the next couple of

13:29 - days. Right? Yeah. Well, thank you for that,

13:31 - Bill, and thank you for joining us here this

13:32 - evening. Be sure to come back tomorrow where

13:34 - we'll have your extended forecast and a brand new weather wise about the.

13:38 - Independence Day weather ahead of the holiday

13:42 - weekend this weekend from all of us here at.

13:50 - Weather World. Have a great evening.