Record heat is on Abilene-area, and it's just May
It's pretty hot outside.
How hot is it?
It's so hot that it's too hot for football.
That's hot.
It's so hot that it's cooler inside Torchy's.
That's hot.
Emails from the Abilene ISD this week noted that Cooper was canceling its spring football game Thursday due to 108-degree heat.
Abilene High still plans to have its Black and Gold game, but not at Shotwell. They'll stay at AHS, to minimize the time student-athletes are working out.
The high Friday is forecast to be 104, with winds as high as 30 mph.
Folks, we're are sweating through a historic May.
We already have had more 100-degree days - 10, including Wednesday - than we did in 2021. All this month.
For the first 17 days, the average daily high was 97.2 degrees.
It hasn't been under 99 degrees for a high since May 5.
The hottest day a year ago in May was 92. We had one day over 90.
That is unusually cool. This year, it's unusually hot.
If you've driven out of town, the landscape looks like the dog days of August.
On Tuesday, a wildfire started southwest of Abilene, clouding the evening sky with smoke. Conditions are ripe for fire.
The heat is compounding because it's so dry. Humidity will lower the temperature, but up the heat index. The only good thing about dry heat — the humidity was under 10% again Tuesday afternoon — is that the "feels like" temperature actually can lower, if there is a breeze.
Abilene keeps missing out on what rain develops. April showers bring May flowers? Nada on both counts.
We've had 0.15 inches of rain this month after 0.47 in April. We've had 3.24 inches this year; normally, it would be 7.49 inches.
Alas, there is good news.
The wind will shift to the northeast overnight Friday and the high Saturday will drop back maybe into the upper 80s, a nice break for Armed Forces Day. We could have several days in the 80s and there is a chance of rain. Not much, but we might get lucky.
A hot topic these days is choice.
Our choice would be for it not to be so hot.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Record heat is on Abilene-area, and it's just May
