A far-reaching cooldown is coming just in time for Labor Day weekend

By Mary Gilbert, CNN Meteorologist

(CNN) — A widespread area of the eastern United States will get a taste of early fall weather for Labor Day weekend after July-like heat baked tens of millions of people this week.

A potent cold front will sweep across the area and usher in cooler air from Canada this weekend into early next week. This will keep the north-central and northeast US strapped into a temperature roller coaster while the South could get its first notable break from intense summer heat in many weeks.

But summer is bleeding into fall as the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution, so the cooldown isn’t expected to last more than a handful of days before temperatures creep back up again. The flip from warm to cool to warm is a trend that could continue through much of fall, according to the latest seasonal forecasts.

The north-central US will be the first area to relish in the front’s relief when it plunges into the country late Saturday. Cooler air will spread farther south and east from there Sunday, and by the evening, fall-like weather will have reached most of the Midwest.

Chicago will see a late-September-like high in the low 70s for Labor Day Monday. It’ll be a drastic change from the heat in the city earlier this week. On Tuesday, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport soared to a record-breaking 99 degrees for the date, which was the highest temperature recorded at the site all summer.

Next week’s cooldown won’t be the city’s first short-lived taste of fall this month. A lot of the northern US has been on a temperature roller coaster in the second half of August, flowing from sizzling summer heat to a tease of fall and back again.

The cold front will push through the Northeast on Monday, but the region will have already experienced a taste of fall ahead of the front. Cooler air first reappeared in parts of the Northeast Thursday after stormy weather rolled through Wednesday.

It felt like mid-September in New York City Thursday with plenty of clouds around and the city only topped out in the mid-70s during the day. Cooler, cloudier weather with daily chances for showers will linger over much of the Northeast through the weekend.

Areas south of the Northeast could have to wait until Tuesday for a few days of heat relief to arrive.

Washington, DC, maxed out at 101 degrees Wednesday, shattering the day’s record and just a few degrees shy of the metro’s hottest August reading. Wet weather on Friday may bring brief heat relief, but the cool will be short-lived until after the cold front goes through the area early next week.

The southern tier of the US has been a literal hot spot all summer, but a cooling trend got underway in parts of the region this week.

Wet, cloudy weather this week brought temperatures along the western Gulf Coast a few degrees below what typical for late August. Persistent storminess will keep high temperatures in Houston and New Orleans in the upper 80s into at least early next week.

While the Gulf Coast has gotten some relief, that same thing can’t be said about inland areas of the South. Tuesday’s front will finally change that.

Atlanta, for example, only had two days so far this summer where high temperatures remained in the low 80s. Tuesday could be the first time since July that the city feels this late-September-like temperature.

These fall temperatures will stick around for much of next week in the South, along with daily chances for stormy weather.

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