Monday, September 12, 2011

Record Setting Summer Still Going

After a week of cooler temperatures, the heat has returned to Deep East Texas as a ridge of high pressure builds in overhead.

We have now hit the century mark a record 60 times so far this summer, and will continue to add to that total yet again today and possibly on Wednesday as well.

An exceptional drought means the extreme heat will continue due to the dry fuels in place across the entire Texas Forest Country.

Fire Threat Still High

The ongoing threat for wildfires will only be increasing over the next couple of days as the wind speeds pick up out of the west-southwest at 10 to 15 mph. These breezy conditions will only dry things out even more, causing the relative humidity to be in the 10-15% range. That is not a combination you want to see when we have already seen several wildfires flare up over the past several days.


Our Futurecast computer model shows the wind forecast at Wednesday evening at 7pm. Notice the wind arrows are blowing from south to north. The winds will have a westerly component as well, which is a dry wind that heats up the atmosphere very rapidly.

Don't let your eyes fool you...that blue triangle feature you see on the map is a cold front that will push into East Texas late this week. This front will bring back slight rain chances to the forecast and will drop temperatures back down into the lower 90's.

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