Print edition: 
Hot, sultry days with highs touching or topping 100 can be expected through Monday, local forecasters say.
"You've heard the saying 'Hot as a firecracker'? It'll live up to its name," Kevin Darmofal, a meteorologist with the Wichita branch of the National Weather Service, said Tuesday.
The agency has issued an excessive heat watch extending from this afternoon through Friday evening, when "an oppressive combination of heat and humidity" is expected in southern and eastern Kansas — including the Wichita area.
If the temperature reaches 100 today or Thursday — and it's expected to both days — this June will climb to third place on the list of most triple digit days in Wichita since records began being kept in 1889.
As of Tuesday, there have been nine 100-degree days so far this month. That ties 1998 and 1936.
Only 1933, with 13 100-degree days, and 1953, with 12, have had more than 2011.
A ridge of high pressure is building up over the central U.S., Darmofal said. Kansas is nearly in the center of the ridge.
"That'll put the Wichita area in the heat for the foreseeable future," he said.
There's a slight chance for a showers and thunderstorms early next week, he said, but forecasters aren't confident that it will happen.
Temperatures over the next several days will be about 10 degrees above normal for this time of year, Darmofal said.
That could make time at the lake, pool, movie theater, mall — or simply the cool comforts of home — even more appealing over the holiday weekend.
