After four straight days of 100-degree — or hotter — weather, the temperatures are expected to drop slightly as we head into next week, the National Weather Service reports.
The hottest day so far this year was Monday, when the temperature at San Antonio International hit 105-degrees at 4:34 p.m. NWS forecaster Ethan Williams said it will be a little more bearable next week, but he knows it’s not much of an improvement since this past Saturday.
“Into Monday and Tuesday, we have highs of 95 and 97,” he said. ”If you want to call that relief, I quess you can, you know, but anywhere else in the country that’s pretty dang hot.”
What may be more of a growing concern is the lack of rainfall. The last in the area was around July 4, he said.
He said a cycle of high pressure systems that prevent cooler and wetter conditions from developing over Texas are common in the summer. He added, between now and early September, our best shot at showers will come from the Gulf of Mexico.
“It typically takes something tropical or something off the gulf to really break the cycle and that’s actually what we had a couple of weeks ago if you remember, we had a couple of rain events,” Williams said. “One on July 4th and a couple of days after and those were just tropical waves coming in off the gulf.”
San Antonio rainfall year-to-date is about five-inches below normal, he said.
And some area waterways are maintaining their levels and flows better than others, according to various government monitoring agencies.
The San Antonio Water System reports stage two water restrictions will remain in place unless the aquifer dips to 640-feet, triggering level three restrictions, which will restrict watering by sprinkler to every other week based on address.
The Texas Water Development Board reports Canyon Lake is 88-percent full, while Medina Lake is 49-percent full.
The Guadalupe River Authority reports the Guadalupe River is flowing at 62-cubic feet per second at Sattler, below Canyon Dam. River outfitters have said in the past, ideal river flow conditions for tubers are closer to 300 cubic feet per second.
Brian Kirkpatrick@tpr.org
