Nearly a dozen West Texas deaths blamed on heat, which is expected to ease by the weekend

West Texas could see scorching temperatures that are blamed for nearly a dozen deaths return to a more typical level by the weekend as a heat dome is expected to move eastward, a National Weather Service meteorologist said Wednesday.

Daily temperatures have exceeded 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) and heat indexes have topped 115 degrees (46 degrees Celsius), leading to deaths that include nine people in Webb County, which includes Laredo.

“We don’t see this in our county. Laredo knows heat. Webb County knows heat,” county Medical Examiner Dr. Corine Stern told county commissioners during a meeting Monday. “These are unprecedented temperatures.”

Two Florida hikers also died while hiking in extreme heat at Big Bend National Park

The scorching temperatures were brought on by a heat dome that has taxed the Texas power grid and brought record highs to parts of the state, according to meteorologists.

That dome is spreading eastward and by the weekend is expected to be centered over the mid-South, said meteorologist Bryan Jackson with the National Weather Service in College Pak, Maryland.

Texas temperatures should then begin to drop from highs above 100 (38 degrees Celsius) degrees to daily temperatures in the 90s, Jackson said.

“It’s relief from the extreme heat,” Jackson said. “It’s not really an end to a heat wave; it’s just an end to the extreme part of the heat wave.”

Another dome of heat has already developed on the West Coast, and an excessive heat warning is in place in a wide swath in the central part of the state, according to Jackson.

“By this weekend there is a risk for record high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees … close to 110 degrees in the Central Valley of California,” Jackson said. “Then some of the more typical mid-summer heat of getting above 115 degrees in the hottest areas of the desert Southwest.“

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