Heat advisories have been issued for most of New Jersey today with record heat possible in some places and heat indices that could reach up to 105 in urban areas.

What's worse, it no longer appears thunderstorms will move through and cool things off later this afternoon.

Temperatures should top out in the mid to upper 90s in most places and were already closing in on 90 in Newark, Howell and New Brunswick by 10 a.m. Additionally, high dewpoints will create very humid conditions, making this afternoon extra unbearable.

Long story short, it's going to be hot.

The records to beat for today are 98 in Newark, 96 in Trenton and Atlantic City and 99 in Central Park in New York City. Each has at least a shot of falling today. If the temperature reaches 97 in Trenton today, it would break a record set more than a century old, originally set in 1908.

But with hot humid conditions and a cold front approaching the area that means storms, right? Typically, but maybe not today.

The gunpowder is there, but the safety (for the moment) is on the gun. The atmospheric culprits for this are known as CAPE and cap.

CAPE, or Convective Available Potential Energy (the gunpowder), is an index used to help forecasters better predict where storms may occur.

"Thunderstorms ("convection") are fueled by convective instability, and CAPE is simply a measure for how much potential instability is available for thunderstorms to occur," explained Mathieu Gerbush, assistant state climatologist at Rutgers University. "The more CAPE, the stronger the potential updrafts in thunderstorms, and the stronger the potential storms themselves."

So, when CAPE values are high, as they are today, explosive development of thunderstorms can occur as warm air catapults into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Visually, this can be seen as cumulonimbus clouds, the towering, sometimes anvil-shaped clouds typically associated with thunderstorms.

But a cap (the safety) can put a quick stop to a thunderstorm's fun. A cap, which is in place today in our region, is a layer of relatively warm air aloft, usually several thousand feet above the ground that suppresses or delays the development of thunderstorms.

This warm air aloft effectively caps (hence the name), how far warm air will rise into the atmosphere. So the energy may be there to create a storm, but the cap is having none of it.

That said, the cap can be broken in certain circumstances, and if a storm does find a way to do so today, it could be severe.

But unfortunately, the chances of washing this heat away later today appear to be slim.

Stephen Stirling is a New Jersey weather fanatic. He welcomes suggestions for weather-related stories, issues and topics. Drop him a note at sstirling@starledger.com.

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