Brutal heat wave hitting Texas 'going to expand' to multiple U.S. states, National Weather Service says

A summer heat wave that has baked Texas over the past two weeks will spread to other Southern states in the coming days, the National Weather Service warned on Monday.

“Going forward, that heat is going to expand ... north to Kansas City and the entire state of Oklahoma, into the Mississippi Valley ... to the far western Florida Panhandle and parts of western Alabama,” National Weather Service lead forecaster Bob Oravec said.

With triple-digit temperatures expected over a wide swath of the South, the NWS posted heat advisories and warnings in parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico and Arizona.

More than 90 high-temperature records fell last week in Texas, Missouri and Florida, CNN reported. That pattern is expected to continue through the week.

“Many areas outside south and south-central Texas [will] experience their most significant heat of the season thus far,” the Weather Prediction Center said on Friday.

Summer heat gets a boost

While summer heat in the Northern Hemisphere is not new, the rapidly growing number of record-high temperatures in comparison to record lows is. A 2009 study conducted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that new record-setting high temperatures outpaced new record-low temperatures by a ratio of 2:1 that year. Computer models have shown that the disparity will grow to 20:1 by 2050 and by 50:1 by 2100.

Thanks to worsening climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels, “the 10 warmest years in the historical record have all occurred since 2010,” NASA says on its website.

14-year-old dies while hiking in Texas

The risk of dehydration increases significantly during heat waves. So-called wet-bulb temperatures, a mix of high temperatures and high humidity, can often prove fatal because the body is unable to cool itself via the evaporation of sweat.

On Friday, a 14-year-old boy died while hiking with his brother and stepfather in Big Bend National Park in Texas, where temperatures had risen to 119 degrees.

The boy fell ill while hiking and lost consciousness. His brother attempted to carry him out of the park while his stepfather drove off to find help. But the stepfather died in a car crash after going over an embankment.

Power grid worries

With record heat gripping much of Texas, demand for electricity has soared as residents depend on air conditioners to try to stay comfortable.

On Monday, overall demand on the state's electrical grid is expected to exceed all-time highs set in 2022, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Officials have asked residents to conserve as much power as possible and to limit outdoor activity.

So far the grid has mostly survived this latest test. One important reason is that the state has moved to add solar power to its energy mix. Since last summer, Texas added roughly 4.4 gigawatts of solar capacity, Scientific American reported, which means that approximately 15% of ERCOT's power generation during the brutally hot afternoon period comes from solar energy generation.

Prisons

One population that is particularly vulnerable to to extreme heat is the incarcerated. More than two-thirds of prisons in Texas don’t have air conditioning in living areas, the Texas Tribune reported.

Summertime temperatures inside these facilities “have been shown to regularly reach 110 degrees,” a recently released report from Texas A&M’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center noted.

A 2022 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 13% of deaths at Texas prisons that lack air conditioning during the hottest six months of the year were likely attributable to extreme heat.