A dangerous stretch of extreme summer heat has triggered a heat advisory for all of Southwest Florida starting at 11 a.m. today. The advisory impacts Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Glades, Hendry, Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto and mainland Monroe counties.

The advisory runs until 7 p.m. today, with heat index values projected to skyrocket up to 110 degrees across the region.

Much of our peninsula remains locked under a persistent southerly wind flow.

This direct pipeline of tropical moisture will keep local heat index values elevated well into Friday.

The National Weather Service warns that additional heat advisories may be required Friday afternoon, with heat indices easily hitting 107 degrees for several hours.

Alongside the heat, expect our typical summer afternoon routine.

Thunderstorms will initially fire up along inland. However, as local steering winds shift late in the day, a few of these storms could drift back toward the coastal communities in the late afternoon and evening.

Looking ahead, the pattern holds steady into the weekend, with high temperatures pinned firmly in the upper 80s to low 90s right along the Gulf Coast.

Western Panhandle forecast rain

While tropical moisture is dominating our local forecast, it is not tied to the remnants of Tropical Storm Arthur. Arthur was a named system for only about six hours on Wednesday before moving inland over Matagorda County in southeast Texas.

The decaying system is pulling deep tropical moisture into the central Gulf Coast and the western Florida Panhandle where up to 12 inches of rain could trigger flash flooding, but the system will have zero direct impact on Southwest Florida.

Stay alert during hurricane season with WGCU Weather by downloading the WGCU News app, which provides critical weather alerts when they matter most.