Baking under a relentless sun, North Texas was poised this weekend to tie a record set all the way back in 1934. It's a record that has had some close calls, however, as clouds have surged as far North as Waco but stopped short of drenching North Texas with badly needed rain, said Skip Ely, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. An upper-level high pressure system is keeping most moisture away from North Texas, Ely said. Clay Anderson, a National Weather Service meteorologist for the Austin-San Antonio office, said that although Central Texas had some soaking rains in the spring, record high temperatures have baked the landscape, with Texas crops paying a high price.
Fires are also a problem.
By Saturday, firefighting crews had almost contained a fire that ravaged 1,800 acres of East Texas forest near Nacogdoches, about 150 miles northeast of Houston, state Forest Service officials said. The blaze, which started Tuesday, was about 95 percent contained behind plowed lines. It was not expected to be fully out until Monday. But experts cautioned that more fires in the Texas woodlands could be sparked by dry conditions. We responded to 29 other lightning fires caused by this.