Temperatures will continue to climb into the middle and upper 90s through Friday and Saturday before cooler weather arrives early next week. Skies will trend mostly sunny to partly cloudy for the next two days, with only low-end chances for rain in the forecast. Showers and thunderstorms will become likely across East Texas once again early next week as an area of low pressure moves over the area from the northeast. We'll see a drop in temperatures with what we call a "backdoor" cold front that will be associated with the area of low pressure. Chances for rain will decrease into the end of next week as temperatures climb back into the middle and upper 90s. A few other items to note... There were no local changes to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Regarding El Niño, NOAA is saying "El Niño continues and will strengthen through the end of the year, with a 97% chance it will persist through early spring 2027." Related to that, Colorado State has once again lowered their forecast for activity in the Atlantic for this year's hurricane season.
Today in weather history... On July 9, 1979, the system that would become Hurricane Bob organized into a tropical depression in the (then) Gulf of Mexico. Bob was the first tropical cyclone to be given a masculine name in the Atlantic basin. On the 11th, the storm struck Louisiana as a Category 1. The daily weather history segments come to us courtesy of the Southeast Regional Climate Center.
This week's weather word is "simoom." A simoom is "a strong, dry, dust-laden desert wind that blows in the Sahara, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and the desert of Arabia." This definition comes from the American Meteorological Society's Glossary of Meteorology (2026).
Also on today's show, an update on extreme heat, flooding, and wildfires across the U.S. Lastly, the satellite imagery of the day showing clouds developing over the Amazon and a plume of Saharan Dust moving over the Atlantic Ocean, courtesy of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere.
