Texas Roasts as Heat Alerts Flash Across The US: Weather Watch
Heat warnings from Arizona to Florida and as far north as Illinois are on Bloomberg Green’s radar today. No respite for Texas, yet.
A sprinkler waters a field during a heat wave in Dallas, Texas, US, on Monday, July 25, 2022. It’s back to being
the epicenter as excessive heat warnings come up across the US.
Texas continues to roast in searing heat with temperatures around Dallas forecast to reach between 100 to 109F degrees Tuesday. The heat index is expected to be 115, the National Weather Service said.
The heat index is the combination of temperature and humidity — a key metric that determines how humans perceive hot conditions.
The readings in the city of Midland in Texas have reached 100F or more for the last 12 days so far, according to the US weather service. Del Rio has seen 10 days of record-breaking high temperatures in June, including each of the last nine days, straining the electric grid. For 2023, Del Rio has set 21 such records.
The worst of the heat, however, will shift out of west Texas and start to drift into the central Mississippi Valley over Arkansas and Missouri later this week, according to Bryan Jackson, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center. For Texas, this means that instead of extreme heat, temperatures will be closer to what is normal for July, “which this time of year is very hot,” Jackson said. “It is not relief, but it is relief from the very extreme heat they have been seeing.”
Blazing temperatures are triggering excessive heat warnings and heat advisories from Arizona to Florida’s Atlantic coast. Across the Permian Basin, temperatures could reach as high as 118 in the river valleys on Tuesday. In New Orleans, Tuesday’s high is forecast to reach 97, while the heat index will inch to 113. Further north, in Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers join, Tuesday’s high is forecast to reach 91 but gets worse later in the week when readings climb to 104.
Temperatures will also remain high in the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.