Heat crushes records, will swell northward
Temperatures as high as 112 degrees shattered records in Texas on Saturday, setting off a prolonged heat wave that will expand through much of the central United States.
Parts of Texas could see record-challenging heat in the next six days while record highs near 90 degrees could expand as far north as the Great Lakes by Thursday.
It’s the first heat wave of 2022 in the Lower 48 states at a time when people aren’t yet acclimated to hot weather, increasing the risk of heatrelated illness. The National Weather Service has issued heat advisories for portions of central and south Texas on Sunday. They will probably need to be reissued and extended northward and eastward over the coming days.
“If you have outdoor plans, be sure to practice heat safety and stay hydrated,” the Weather Service office serving Austin and San Antonio tweeted early Sunday.
The heat will also intensify a critical-to-extreme fire threat that stretches from New Mexico to West Texas.
Abnormally hot weather not only scorched Texas Saturday. Searing temperatures into the 90s also spread over parts of Colorado and New Mexico. In Arizona, Phoenix reached the century mark for the first time this year.
Here is a list of some of the notable records that were set Saturday:
• 107 degrees: Abilene, Del Rio and San Angelo, Texas
• 106 degrees: Childress, Texas
• 102 degrees, Lubbock, Texas
• 101 degrees: San Antonio
and Amarillo, Texas - the earliest date ever recorded hitting the century mark in Amarillo
• 98 degrees, Dalhart, Texas
• 96 degrees: Corpus Christi, Texas
• 91 degrees: Colorado Springs
• 89 degrees: Denver
• 87 degrees, Galveston, Texas
The mercury soared as high as 112 degrees at Rio Grande Village near the border with Mexico in West Texas, according to Maximiliano Herrera, an expert on weather extremes.
While unrelated to the heat in Texas and the Southwest, South Florida also baked Saturday, with record highs in Miami (93, tying 2021) and Fort Lauderdale (93).
On Sunday, recordbreaking heat — with temperatures again topping 100 — mostly concentrated in Texas before the dome of high pressure responsible for the heat balloons toward the Great Lakes as the upcoming week wears on.
Record highs into the 90s are anticipated in Louisiana, central and southern Arkansas, and western Mississippi today.
By Tuesday, record highs into the low 90s will expand as far north as St. Louis. The Weather Service office in serving St. Louis wrote that the weather pattern will lock in “an unseasonably warm airmass that will bring several days of surface temperatures approaching daily records for early May.”
The heat will be most expansive Wednesday, with highs near 90 or higher in Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois and everywhere to the south. The Weather Service predicts scores of records to fall.