Mainly Dry, Hot and Ragweed... AH CHOO!

NOT VERY FALL LIKE…

The first full week of Fall is far from Fall-like.  Temperatures the next few days will be around 10 degrees above average!  We will see highs on Monday around 90 degrees.  Tomorrow we will see highs in the low 90s.  Wednesday and Thursday will feature highs in the mid 90s!  But we will cool down a little for Friday and the weekend with highs in the mid 80s.   There is a stalled out front over far southern sections of North Texas.  It is possible we could see a stray thunderstorm along that front tonight and tomorrow, but rain chances are less than 10% so I will leave the area mainly dry.

WHY SO DRY…

There is a large upper level low spinning over the Illinois.  This low has moved very little in the past 5 days.  This has kept the upper air pattern over Texas rather stagnant.  No disturbances and changes in the flow to force new air masses into the state.  If you don't have air moving at any levels of the atmosphere, you're not going to get much in the way of weather.  There will be a cold front that arrives Thursday but there will be so little moisture in the atmosphere that no rain will be produced with its passage.  Winds do not appear to be a big factor until the front gets here and then we might have a breezy day on Friday.

HERE IS YOUR 7-DAY FORECAST…

AIR POLLUTION WATCH LEVEL ORANGE FOR TUESDAY…

Because of the stagnant air and hot temperatures, there is a level orange air pollution watch in effect for the metroplex and surrounding counties.

RAGWEED SEASON IN FULL SWING…

Late August thru November is Ragweed season here in North Texas with its peak in mid-September.  And the ragweed count has been high for the past few weeks.  You would think that with the drought, ragweed would have a tough time growing as pretty much everything else is dead or dying.  But to the disappointment of many, Ragweed actually thrives in dry, hot climates.  So the drought has had little impact on the amount of ragweed plants that have sprouted up.  One ragweed plant is capable of producing a billion pollen grains in a season.

There are some food that make the ragweed reaction worse.  Those food include bananas, cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon.  Try to avoid these foods if you suffer from Ragweed allergies.

Ragweed really doesn't disappear until the first freeze.  The average first freeze at DFW is November 22.  So we have a long ways to go.  Here are the first freezes over the past few years…

WINTER SEASON                                              DATE OF FIRST FREEZE

2010-11     Nov 26

2009-10    Dec 3

2008-09    Dec 4

2007-08    Dec 16

2006-07     Nov 30