Good afternoon everyone.
Hope you're staying cool.
I'm WFH meteorologist Kyle Roberts.
Just wanted to take a little
time to talk about the extreme
heat that we're seeing today,
and also that fire danger as we do
have a couple of large wildfires
ongoing in North Texas aerial.
Since you'll be on in just a little
bit to talk about the latest on those.
In the meantime,
I want to give you a weather update reminder.
We do have one of these excessive heat
warnings we've had these over the last
couple of days for all of North Texas now.
It's been expanded just a little bit.
Our Southern rural counties.
If you were in kind of the southern
areas of North Texas, you were not
included in this a little while ago.
Now you've been added because your heat
is basically the same as everybody else.
Remember those means those high temperatures
anywhere from around 1:05 to 1:10,
and your heat index higher than whatever
the temperature is by a couple degrees.
So if you're actual temperatures 109,
your heat index could be above 110.
We also have that red flag warning in place.
Basically that just means very high
fire danger all across North Texas.
The winds are breezy.
Today it is very hot.
It is dry as well.
We also have the ongoing drought conditions,
all the grasses out there are extremely dry,
so any fire that gets started.
Can spread very,
very quickly and unfortunately we
have seen that over the past 24 to 48
hours with a couple of those fires
ongoing in parts of North Texas,
so please be careful with the
cigarette butts.
Anything that causes sparks,
any open flames there are burn
bans in place for pretty much all
of North Texas right now,
so you should not be doing
any outdoor burning.
Doesn't ban you from doing things like
welding and stuff that causes sparks,
so you got to be careful if you're
doing any of that activity.
And please keep the cigarette butts
in the car because like I said,
any of these fires could spread very quickly.
Actual temperatures at this hour
it is 103 in Dallas.
There's 106 in four or look at Mineral
Wells already up to 110 right now.
That's out close to that fire
near Possum Kingdom at the moment,
105 in Denton, 103 in McKinney,
103 in Waxahachie.
Pretty much all of North Texas at
or above 100 degrees right now.
Quite a few places well above 100 degrees.
Your heat index values are above
the temperature as well.
Athens was at 99,
but feeling like 104 Dallas feels
like 109 Fort Worth feels like 109.
Not much of a heat index in Mineral Wells,
but it doesn't really matter
because the actual temperature.
Is one 10110 is also what it feels
like in Denton and Paris at the moment.
Right now DFW airport, it is 104.
It's a little after 2:30 right now,
so we still have another
couple hours of heat to go.
I'm guessing we'll probably end
up around 108 to 109 for the
high temperature this afternoon.
109 is what we hit yesterday.
I wouldn't be surprised if
we hit that again today.
If we do hit it today,
that would be a record high.
The record is 108 set back in 2018.
So with today hitting 100 degrees.
That is 24100 degree days.
So far we've only had four in a row
because last week late last week we
dipped below 100 degrees for a couple days.
So our streak of triple
digits isn't that high,
but we've had 24 so far this summer season.
And remember,
we averaged 20,
so we are above average and will
continue to stay above average remains
to be seen how much we end up with,
but we're going to keep adding to that
list at least today and tomorrow and
probably over the next several days as well.
Here's what you can expect
through the rest of the evening.
I think we hit around 109 that will happen,
probably between 4:00 and 5:00 o'clock.
Temperatures will slowly cool after
that may not drop down below 100
degrees until sometime between 8:00
and 10:00 still at 10:00 o'clock.
Tonight could be 98 degrees
and still 94 at midnight,
so the heat definitely sticking
around for the time being.
Let's talk about those wildfires though.
Ariel is up in The Newsroom
with the latest on those.
What can you tell
me? Yeah, hey Carl, thanks so much.
Let's take a look outside.
This is our Cedar Hill Cam looking West.
You'll notice that hazy
sky in the background.
We don't have that usual bright blue
sky look that we have this time of year.
That's because you can see the smoke.
All the way from here through our tower
Cam again looking West from Cedar Hill.
We've got a couple of our eyes
on some fires that are working
West of us as Kyle mentioned.
So let's come over here to the Texas
A&M Forest Service map and just to
give you an idea of those brown dots,
those are going to be contained fires.
The red ones.
Those are active fires and so we're
going to start with the 1148 fires
to give an idea where we are.
Dallas Fort Worth and then we go West.
This red dot right here.
That's the 1148 fire,
also known as the Possum Kingdom Lake Fire.
It's kind of on the north.
Into the lake and we do know that
right now it is burning 500 acres.
Only 10% contained.
Unfortunately,
at least eight homes have been destroyed.
Thankfully no one hurt.
No reports of any injuries at this hour.
Now my colleague Chris Hodge was
out there earlier this morning
doing live reports for Daybreak
and he was saying that there were
some roads closed trying to keep
everybody away from that area.
They were allowing some residents to
go in just to get essential items,
but then they had to get back out.
And they're also the Red Cross.
Had set-up a shelter at a nearby.
Chapel in Graham,
but my colleague Chris told me
that they actually shut that down
overnight because thankfully,
nobody needed it.
Now the Red Cross certainly sending a
lot of resources to the Chalk Mountain fire,
and so that's going to be right here again,
Dallas Fort Worth right here is
the Chalk mountain fire that is
burning 4000 acres, 10% contained.
I mentioned those resources that is
very needed for those residents there,
and that's actually we find my colleague,
Kevin Reese.
This is the evacuation center,
the Expo Center in Somerville that is
being used as an evacuation location and a
Resource Center for the folks of this area,
and it is very much in need right
now we have learned from one family,
one family, that family of parents and
grandparents lost four homes and that's
just one group of people we're hearing
reports that as many of 12 structures
may have been lost in this fire so far.
Folks are coming here.
Being able to use this as a Red Cross
evacuation center if they need it.
They have a place for livestock and other
animals as well that is being utilized.
Also, we do know that this fire
has grown to 4000 acres overnight.
We've watched as air tankers dropping
water and flame retardant have been
attacking the line about 6 miles
to the north and West of here.
This is very much a major concern
as the weather continues to be
extremely hot as we all know,
but they're battling wind as well.
This will be an ongoing firefight.
They fear for several days.
With only about 10% of it contained so far.
Yeah, unfortunately things continue
to be quite dry here in North Texas.
In fact, the last time,
at least in the DFW area we saw rain,
was way back on June 3rd.
Only 1/10 of an inch filled in,
so we've had 45 days in a row now.
I believe today would
actually end up being 46.
Probably not going to rain between
now and midnight so we can go ahead
and say it will be the 46th day in
a row without measurable rainfall.
Not the longest streak on record.
And we have to go back to 2000 when
we had 84 days, but it's not just the
DFW area that's seen a lack of rain.
Recently there has been some rain
across southern North Texas.
Last week, probably not enough to
help out with the drought situation.
We will get a new drought update on Thursday,
worse than the drought,
kind of from DFW to the South,
but I imagine just how dry
things have been recently.
We will see these higher
categories of drought,
like the severe drought to extreme drought,
to continue to expand across
parts of North Texas.
By the way, that one fire out near Possum
Kingdom in severe drought at the moment.
The other one in Somerville County.
Exceptional drought.
That's his worst as it gets so things
are very very dry here in North Texas.
And also now every single
county in North Texas.
Under a burn ban,
Grayson County was the last
holdout Grayson County has now
been added to the burn ban list.
So if you're watching this right now,
you cannot do any outdoor burning in
North Texas as you are under a burn ban.
Let's take a look at that
forecast for the next 10 days.
It'll be hot tomorrow,
just as hot as today,
or at least almost as hot.
Maybe a degree cooler.
There could be a pop-up
shower or storm tomorrow,
but most places will be
dry a little bit better.
Chance for rain on Thursday and by better,
I mean,
we upped the percentage by 10% so
it's a 20% coverage on Thursday.
It's not high,
but it's something to hope for.
We do cool off.
That is,
you can see highs back closer to 100
degrees late week and into next weekend.
So after today and tomorrow,
the excessive heat comes to an
end and just that regular summer
heat continues with no major
cooldowns in our future.
Hope you're staying cool.
Thanks for watching this
afternoon and have a good day.