People waking up Saturday morning could have good reason to wonder if they’re still in Fresno and haven’t been magically transported to a land of cooler temperatures.

After a merciless month of pavement-melting heat, overnight lows will drop into the 60s and daytime highs into the lower 90s.

We can thank a low-pressure system that will push the heat dome off our heads and eastward, says Emily Wilson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.

The latest spate of extreme heat in Fresno will end today with a high of 107, followed by 103 on Friday, 94 on Saturday and Sunday, 97 on Monday and Tuesday, 99 on Wednesday, and then back to the triple-digits on the first day of August, with a forecast high of 102, she said.

Nighttime lows this weekend will be in the 60s in Fresno and could drop into the 50s in Merced and Madera, Wilson said.

‘A Great Relief to a Lot of People’

The five-days of sub-100 weather and cooler nighttime temperatures are “going to be a great relief to a lot of people. It’s been over 100 for many days, for the whole month. So we’re probably going to get some relief there with this coming in,” Wilson said.

The daily high temperatures in Fresno have been at or above 100 degrees for 23 days as of Wednesday — the entire month so far except for July 17, when the high reached 98 degrees. Seventeen of the first 24 days in July had highs of 105 or above — of those, eight had highs of 110 or higher, peaking at 114 on July 7.

The five days of cooler weather starting Saturday will lower the average temperature for July, which as of Wednesday was 91.8 degrees. The record for July is 88.7 degrees and was set in 2021. The average temperature is the midpoint between the daily high and low temperatures.