The short-term forecast remains mostly unchanged from the last several days, hot and mostly sunny afternoons each day for the foreseeable future with only low-end chances for rain. There will continue to be an elevated fire danger given the dry ground and breezy winds. Burn bans are in effect for many East Texas counties, and for those that aren't, it is still against Texas regulation to burn when winds exceed 23 mph. Towards the end of next week, the chance for rain looks to increase slightly, but the chances are still low for now.
In the long-range, the Climate Prediction Center continues to highlight warmer and drier than normal conditions for East Texas through the end of the month. Additionally, the risk for rapid onset drought remains a concern. In today's update to the U.S. Drought Monitor, abnormally dry conditions are reflected for a growing portion of East Texas. Moderate Drought remains for areas near I-20 and I-30. For more on the drought situation across the South, I've put the summary from the drought monitor authors below.
"Dryness and drought have been expanding and worsening over much of the South Region for the past few weeks. Rapidly deteriorating conditions have been observed across Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, and adjacent areas of Arkansas, but almost all states saw declining conditions this past week. Tennessee was an exception, where more widespread heavier rainfall prompted some improvement in central and eastern parts of the state, with persisting or deteriorating conditions limited to northern and western parts of the state. Farther west, deterioration was introduced through most of Oklahoma (especially the eastern half of the state), the Red River Valley, Much of the Texas Panhandle and northeastern Texas, western Arkansas, northern and eastern Louisiana, and scattered patches across the remainder of the Region from the Lower Mississippi Valley westward. Oklahoma has seen very little precipitation over the last 30 days, with most locations reporting less than 25 percent of the normal. Temperatures averaging 3 to 7 deg F above normal mid-summer values significantly exacerbated the drying conditions across much of Oklahoma and northern Texas, including the Panhandle. Temperatures averaged near or up to 3 deg F above normal elsewhere. Much more abundant rainfall prior to the past 30 days is keeping longer-responding impacts from ramping up too quickly, but some crops and streamflows are being deleteriously affected. Almost half of Texas oats and over one-third of Oklahoma soybeans are in poor or very poor condition. Across Oklahoma, 44 percent of pastures and rangelands are in poor or very poor condition, as are 33 percent of those in Arkansas."
Looking ahead to the fall and winter, we do have some indications on what the seasonal forecasts will be. NOAA announced today that El Niño is strengthening, and there is a high chance of a very strong El Niño during the upcoming fall and winter. Typically, this suggests a cooler and wetter late fall, winter, and early spring for East Texas. The strong El Niño has also played a role in the quiet Atlantic hurricane season to date. Earlier this month, NOAA released an updated hurricane season outlook that has lowered expectations for the remainder of the season. NOAA's outlook calls for El Niño to persist into next spring as well, so we'll also look at what that might imply for spring storms.
Today in weather history... On August 13, 2004, after a rapid intensification to high-end Category 4, Hurricane Charley made landfall in Florida near Punta Gorda. With winds up to 150 mph, the storm produced substantial structural damage in numerous communities and took the lives of nine people. The daily weather history segments come to us courtesy of the Southeast Regional Climate Center.
Also on today's show, severe storms moved through the Midwest once again yesterday; we'll have an update on that. Plus, our satellite imagery of the day showing the complete view of the 2026 Eclipse from GOES-East, courtesy of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere.
