Weekend weather forecast: Hot, winds shift for West, soggy South

A cold front will deliver below-average temperatures for parts of the eastern half of the U.S.

The clouds will be the main driver of the cooler temperatures throughout much of the weekend. Average highs will be anywhere between 5 to 10 degrees below normal extending from Texas all the way through the Mid-Atlantic. There's a chance for afternoon scattered storms across the Florida peninsula through the weekend. This same front will linger on Saturday and Sunday and will bring the chance for showers and isolated thunderstorms extending from Texas, across the Deep South, and through the Southeast. Parts of North Carolina will continue to deal with some scattered showers adding to the flooding risk to areas already well saturated by the heavy rains on Friday.

As this cold front moves east, a high-pressure system will build across the High Plains. This high pressure will switch the winds across the northern Rockies and the northern Plains. The change of winds will keep the smoke away from Canada through much of the weekend. Remember this thick smoke has affected parts of Montana, the Dakotas southward to Nebraska late this week as the wildfires continue to burn over Canada’s western provinces.

With the high-pressure system building over the area, expect highs to be very hot through the weekend. The South winds will bring afternoon highs well into the 90s across some areas east of the Cascades through the Rockies and the northern Plains. Average high temperatures are between 10 to 20 degrees above normal for this time of the year.

Early next week the heat builds across the Southwest and for the San Joaquín Valley in California. Highs will reach the triple digits for California's interior desert through much of southern Arizona.