PANAMA CITY — Judging just from the temperature in Panama City Beach on Wednesday, Susan Webber could have been back home in Texas.
But it’s not the heat; it’s the humidity that will get you.
“The temperature here is the same as it is where we’re from in San Antonio, but the humidity here is just so much more,” Webber said. “We’re melting.”
Webber and her two children, 10-year-old Ashton and 9-year-old Allison, joined dozens of others trying to keep cool at the Frank Brown Park pool in Panama City Beach as the heat index in the area rose into the 100s Wednesday.
“This is so much more pleasant than the beach,” she said. “The water is nice and cool.”
While Bay County temperatures topped out in the mid-90s Wednesday, the heat index, which takes humidity levels into account, crept above 105 in several locations, initiating a heat advisory from the National Weather Service.
“We typically issue those [heat advisories] when it hits 108, and we’re getting close to that,” said NWS Tallahassee meteorologist Mark Wool. “The humidity is going to make it feel like it’s 106 to 107.”
Thursday’s forecast outlines even higher temperatures, with the heat index expected to climb to 109 degrees across Bay County, keeping NWS’s heat advisory in effect.
A heat advisory signals the possibility of heat illnesses like heatstroke or heat exhaustion. The NWS recommends people limit outdoor exposure under a heat advisory, stay in an air-conditioned building if possible and drink plenty of fluids.
But while Thursday will be another scorcher, Wool said relief is on the way.
“We owe that, in part, to Tropical Storm Arthur,” said Wool, adding that the East Coast storm will help usher in drier air to push the humidity down come Friday. “We’re going to get a front — a ‘dry front’ — that comes down and settles over the area.”
Even so, the maximum heat index for the Fourth of July weekend will remain in the mid-90s, he said.
For Panama City Beach visitor Deanna Neldon, who vacations in the area with family from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma every year for the July Fourth holiday, the heat and sunshine are welcome after torrential rains dumped last year’s visit.
“It’s been a little hot,” Neldon said. “But we try to get out early for the beach ... and back out in the evening.”
Steamy Panhandle
Heat indices around the Panhandle topped 100 in many locations Wednesday*:
- Apalachicola: 106
- Marianna: 102
- Tyndall AFB: 102
- West Bay (airport): 102
* Highest heat index in degrees Fahrenheit through 4 p.m. CDT
Source: National Weather Service