Comment Records are falling as temperatures rise amid a high-stakes heat wave that is baking the Great Plains. Temperatures have soared to 115 degrees in Texas and Oklahoma, with more than 60 million Americans expected to see triple-digit heat next week. Heat warnings and extreme heat warnings affect more than 105 million people in 28 states in both the central United States and the Northeast, where the combination of heat and high humidity will lead to conditions ripe for heatstroke-related illness or with the heat. Extreme heat warnings and heat advisories are in effect this morning for 28 states, stretching from California to New Hampshire. High temperatures in the 90s and 100s will increase the risk of heat-related illnesses. For heat safety tips visit: pic.twitter.com/rFmVCKxDSV — NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) July 20, 2022 The Weather Channel tweeted that more than 200 million people will experience highs above 90 degrees for the next three days. Dallas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa could all approach 110 degrees in the coming days, and some locations have surpassed that. For the first time in history, every one of Oklahoma’s 120 weather stations reached 103 degrees on Tuesday. Why this European heat wave is so scary Oklahoma City soared to 110 degrees for the first time in a decade on Tuesday. This is only the ninth time since World War II that the Sooner State’s capitol has been this hot — an event that happens once every 10 years, on average. It also breaks a record that has stood since 1936. The top reading came from Mangum in southwest Oklahoma, which reached 115 degrees at 5:55 p.m. It was comparably hot in North Texas, where Fort Worth’s Meacham International Airport soared to 110 degrees and Dallas hit 109. Wichita Falls reached a July record of 115. “Another day of exceptional heat is ahead with triple-digit highs for all of North and Central Texas,” the National Weather Service in Fort Worth wrote in an online technical chat. Dallas is forecast to top out around 107 degrees on Wednesday, and should be in the low 100s effectively until further notice. Austin and San Antonio are also expecting similar temperatures. “We’re kind of in our third wave of well-above-average temperatures this summer for south-central Texas,” Keith White, a meteorologist with the Weather Service in Austin, said in an interview Wednesday. “Austin could be looking at 106 or 107 today. Just last week, there were three days in Austin at 106 or above.” Every day between July 9 and July 13 in Austin a record was tied or broken. The city reached 110 degrees on July 10 and reached 109 on the 11th and 12th. This is the hottest three-day period on record for the city. Accounting dates back to 1897. “110 degrees on the 10th was actually tied for the second hottest temperature on record in Austin,” White said. So far, Austin has recorded 39 hundred-degree days this season and San Antonio as many as 40. “This is the most we’ve ever seen at this point in the season, surpassing even 2011, a banner year for drought and wildfires,” White said. Drought and fire are both issues in much of Texas and Oklahoma, where red flag warnings are in effect. Along and especially west of Interstate 35, humidity levels below 25 percent, combined with winds gusting up to 30 mph, are ripe conditions for the fire to spread quickly. Several wildfires were burning in north central Texas on Monday, including in Somervell County, southwest of Dallas. Fire (Somervell County) Another fire has broken out in Somervell County near Highway 67 and CR 1004 southwest of Glen Rose. Asking for help from Hood County. pic.twitter.com/fgc4iYSMux — DFW Scanner (@DFWscanner) July 18, 2022 “We’ve had a large number of fires throughout our region, and even more and larger ones in other areas of Texas,” White said. He blamed both the recent dry weather storm and the unusually wet spring last year. This helped the plants to grow and provided a greater availability of fuel that would later dry up. “[The wet spring in 2021] it allowed a lot of vegetation to grow longer than normal, then we had a drier winter, spring and summer, making things susceptible to burning,” White said. Closer to the Gulf Coast, there is a little more moisture. While that will limit temperatures slightly lower — between 98 and 102 degrees — the juicy air mass present will help heat indices push past 105 degrees. “Today is going to be hotter wherever you are [area],” wrote the Weather Service in Houston. This moisture flows north into the Ozarks and up into the Mississippi Valley as well. In Little Rock, Wednesday’s high temperature was forecast to top out just a hair above 100 degrees, but heat indices could flirt with 115 degrees. The local Met Office office described the setting as “Hot, muggy and basically ‘air swimming’ conditions”. What’s behind the heat? A stagnant ridge of high pressure colloquially known as a “heat dome”. The high pressure results in sinking air, which clears the sky and creates plenty of sunshine. The high acts as a kind of force field, deflecting the jet stream northward and deflecting any bad weather toward Canada. While the heat dome appears to be shifting east over the next few days, it doesn’t appear to be breaking any time soon, meaning there’s no immediate end to the heat. In Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Dallas, Wichita Falls, Houston, Austin and Little Rock, highs should stay around or above 100 degrees for at least the next week. The heat will also bleed over to the east coast. Heat advisories stretch from Delaware to parts of inland New York to southern New Hampshire on Wednesday, where the combination of heat and humidity will make it feel like 95 to 100 degrees in the north and 100 to 105 degrees in the south. Some of the warmest weather along the east coast is forecast this weekend. On Sunday, highs could touch the century mark from Washington to New York for the first time in at least several years. The heat coincides with a historically extreme event in Europe that has so far killed more than 1,000 people and sparked wildfires that have forced 40,000 to evacuate. An impressive 34 weather stations broke the 101.7 degree mark in Britain, recording temperatures hotter than anything Britain has seen before. The dome of violent heat is moving east, with Central Europe swelling Human-induced climate change is indisputably increasing the duration and severity of heat waves.
