Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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Summer is sizzling in Alaska. Summer is missing in New England.

Temperatures in central Alaska were similar to those of Southwest Virginia on Monday.

Fairbanks, Alaska, had the same high temperature as Roanoke at 88. In Fairbanks, that tied a record high for the date (Roanoke was 11 degrees off its record of 99). Some stations in central Alaska even reached the low 90s.

Barrow, Alaska, on the Arctic Coast, reached 70 degrees for the second day in a row -- the first time in 16 years that Barrow had reached 70 on consecutive days.

Meanwhile, the Northeast is experiencing a summer that hasn't really gotten started yet.

Many reporting stations from New York to Maine are running 4 to 7 degrees below normal for the month of July. Binghamton, N.Y., set a record low for the date of 51 on Monday, and Rochester, N.Y., followed with a record low of 48 on Tuesday.

The extremes of Alaska and New England are connected.

Strong high pressure has nosed into Alaska, bringing stagnant, hot air far to the north. But that high also is tipping the jet stream southeastward, pushing cool air from Canada into the Great Lakes and Northeast.

The flow of air out of Canada has kept our weather from being extremely hot. After the next two days when highs could reach the low 90s in some places, milder summer weather is likely to return for Southwest Virginia through the weekend and into early next week.