Expanding Drought with no Rain in Sight

The moderate drought, which had stretched across Polk, Tyler, Jasper, and Newton counties last week, has now expanded into some of our northern counties.

As of yesterday, portions of Shelby, Nacogdoches, Rusk, and all of Panola county were included in the moderate drought.

That drought is outlined by the light shading of brown on the GFX to your left. You can see that it is closing in quickly on East Texas. While many of us are not in a drought, we are labeled as abnormally dry, as indicated by the shading of yellow.

I'm getting concerned that with another week or two of very little rainfall, that moderate drought will encompass most, if not all of East Texas.

The problem is that the weather pattern will be shifting towards a hot and dry one for the Texas Forest Country.

We will see a ridge of hot high pressure build into the Southern Plain states this weekend. That high pressure ridge will keep the storm systems well to our north and west, leaving us hot and dry.

Right now, most computer models keep this pattern in place through the middle of next week, meaning there is no rain in sight.

With the dry conditions and an unfavorable weather pattern, temperatures will be heating up into the middle 90's. That will be about 10 degrees above normal for us in late May.

In the meantime, keep those sprinklers and air conditioners running. You will be needing both to satisfy your yards and yourselves in the week ahead.