{"id":365192,"date":"2026-07-08T10:45:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/365192\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T10:45:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:45:55","slug":"saharan-dust-could-boost-austin-temperatures-how-hot-will-it-get","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/365192\/","title":{"rendered":"Saharan dust could boost Austin temperatures. How hot will it get?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hot and hazy weather will be the story across Central Texas<\/a> over the next couple of days as a plume of Saharan dust moves into the region and a strengthening upper-level ridge of high atmospheric pressure expands from northwestern Mexico into the southern Plains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The building ridge will bring hotter, drier weather on Wednesday and Thursday, while the Saharan dust creates hazy skies and could lead to a slight reduction in air quality before rain chances return later this week.<\/p>\n

Will we reach the 100-degree mark on Wednesday? We have about a 20% chance: Out of five forecast models, only one has downtown Austin reaching 100 degrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service is calling for an afternoon high temperature of 98 degrees after a morning low temp of 77 degrees, along with lots of sunshine.<\/p>\n

While the upper 90s seems hot, it\u2019s only a few degrees warmer than our average early-July high of 95 degrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ridge of high air pressure will strengthen further on Thursday, keeping Texas hot, dry and mostly cloud-free. Morning temperatures will range from the mid-70s in the Hill Country to the upper 70s east of Interstate 35. Afternoon temps will climb into the mid-90s to around 100 degrees.<\/p>\n

Rain chances begin to increase again this weekend as the ridge weakens and shifts west in response to another upper-level atmospheric disturbance moving over the top of the ridge and into the central United States.<\/p>\n

Our attention then turns to an atmospheric disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico, which will take advantage of the weakening ridge and send a surge of tropical moisture into South and Central Texas. As a result, scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop Friday afternoon and continue through Monday.<\/p>\n

Right now, the best chance for rain appears to be on Saturday, when the deepest volume of moisture is expected to move into the region. That could lead to pockets of locally heavy rainfall.<\/p>\n

Texas has seen a remarkable turnaround in drought levels<\/a> after a few consecutive months when much-needed rainfall occurred. June was especially wet across Central Texas, with many communities along the Interstate 35 corridor receiving more than 200% of their normal monthly rainfall.<\/p>\n

As a result, drought levels continue to improve across the Lone Star State, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>. About 32% of Texas remains at some level of drought, affecting roughly 4.4 million of the state\u2019s 32 million residents.<\/p>\n

Of those areas experiencing drought, about 20% are in moderate drought, which is the lowest drought level, as measured by the U.S. Drought Monitor. About 11% is in severe drought, the next higher level of drought, while just 2% of the state remains in extreme drought, which is the second-highest level of drought.<\/p>\n

Since early January, Texas has made tremendous progress in reducing drought. However, the weather pattern has shifted, with the heaviest rainfall moving from the Texas Panhandle earlier this year to Central and South Texas in recent months. As soil continues to dry out across North Texas,\u00a0wildfire concerns will likely increase<\/a>, making that an area to watch closely through the rest of the summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hot and hazy weather will be the story across Central Texas over the next couple of days as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-365192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}