The Heat Wave Continues As NJ Keeps Baking [POLL/AUDIO]

Jersey residents are bracing for another scorcher today - with temperatures expected to climb up into the mid 90's again this afternoon - and it'll be even hotter tomorrow.

New Jersey state climatologist Dave Robinson says while it has been very hot for the past week and a half, "June temperatures were close to average - it's just the end of the month finished up with some hot weather - the last week of the month was the only real hot week of the month and now we start July in midst of some very warm weather - but it's far from unprecedented."

He says for the rest of this week, "It's very tough- the next couple of days are going to be very rough on people who can't escape the heat into air conditioning.  Not only the heat, but the humidity is going to be increasing."

So does this mean we need to worry about the possibility of a drought?

Robinson says, "Were this heat to continue with the lack of rain, we could very quickly go into what is generally called flash drought conditions…A flash drought situation has taken hold in the Midwest over the past couple of weeks - and it's threatening the corn crop…This is the time of year when you go for multiple weeks with excessive heat and little rain- and an average condition - which is where we were going into the last couple of weeks- can become very serious pretty quickly...When you add the heat and the general lack of rain around this state - we have to keep a watchful eye out…People are putting a lot of water on their lawns right now -Mother Nature is sucking a lot of that moisture out of the ground - so we're going to have to keep a watchful eye."

He adds the good news is "it looks like we'll get a break next week - at least in the temperature department - and that's part of the battle in the summer.  But you need some rain eventually and people have to be prudent with their use of water."