Hotter Temperatures on the way for East Texas as Heat Wave Builds

It has been so hot in East Texas that the only things that has been higher than the temperatures have been the reviews of Top Gun - Maverick.

Hot and Getting Hotter

Since late April, the Pineywoods have experienced temperatures well-above average with a few record-setting days as well. Speaking of records, we could be matching or breaking a few more this week as temperatures are expected to soar into the triple digits. That's about 10 degrees hotter than our average this time of year. Factor in the humidity and we could have heat indices over 105 degrees.

This excessive heat is expected to last through at least the middle part of next week. Oh, by the way, we're still nearly two weeks away from the START of summer.

What About Some Relief from Rain?

That doesn't too promising.  We have anywhere from a 10-20 percent chance of rain over the next week.

As of June 8, Lufkin is reporting that we are running about eight inches behind in our year-to-date rainfall average.  Even with that deficit, most of the Pineywoods is looking okay when it comes to the drought index. However, if this excessive heat combined with no rainfall continues for a while, we could quickly move up the drought scale.

The Climate Prediction Center is expecting the upcoming summer season in East Texas to be a little hotter than normal.  They are also predicting rainfall to be about normal for the period of June through August.