September 9, 2026

This region sits at the center of the country's largest heat event today, and it is the second day of it.

The National Weather Service office in Tulsa has an extreme heat warning in effect until 7 PM Central time covering north and central Sebastian, southern Crawford, and central and southern Franklin counties in Arkansas, and Tulsa, Rogers, Mayes, Okmulgee, Wagoner, Muskogee, McIntosh, Haskell, northern Le Flore, and central and southern Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma. That covers the cities of Tulsa and Fort Smith.

An extreme heat warning is one step above a heat advisory. It means dangerous heat is occurring or imminent rather than merely likely, and it is the level at which the Weather Service expects heat illness in people who would normally be fine.

Heat advisories, one level down, run until 7 PM Central time across a much wider area: northwest Arkansas including Benton, Carroll, Washington, and Madison counties along with northern Crawford, northern Franklin, and southern Sebastian; northeast Oklahoma including Washington, Nowata, Craig, Ottawa, Pawnee, Delaware, Creek, Okfuskee, Cherokee, Adair, Pittsburg, Latimer, western Osage, and northern Sequoyah counties, plus Pushmataha and Choctaw; and northwest Louisiana and southwest Arkansas including Caddo, Bossier, Webster, Claiborne, Lincoln, Union, De Soto, Red River, Bienville, Jackson, Ouachita, Sabine, Natchitoches, Winn, Grant, Caldwell, and La Salle parishes in Louisiana and Sevier, Howard, Little River, Hempstead, Nevada, Miller, Lafayette, Columbia, and Union counties in Arkansas. In Texas, the Fort Worth office has advisories until 8 PM for Fannin, Lamar, Young, Jack, Stephens, Palo Pinto, Parker, Hood, Somervell, and Bosque counties.

The National Weather Service instruction text on these products is the same everywhere: drink fluids, spend the hottest part of the day in an air conditioned room, stay out of the sun, wear light and loose clothing, and move strenuous work to early morning or evening. Check on relatives and neighbors, particularly anyone living alone without air conditioning. Never leave a child or a pet in a parked vehicle, even briefly. The Weather Service also passes along the Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidance to schedule frequent rest breaks in shade or air conditioning for outdoor work. Anyone overcome by heat should be moved somewhere cool and shaded, and the Weather Service treats heat stroke as an emergency call to 911.

One addition specific to a second consecutive day of this: heat is cumulative. A house without air conditioning that did not cool off overnight starts today warmer than it started yesterday, and the people in it start with less reserve. If you know someone older living alone in Tulsa or Fort Smith, today is the day the phone call is worth more than it was yesterday.

Away from the heat, the Weather Service office in Lake Charles has a flood warning until 8:20 PM for Hardin and Jefferson counties in southeast Texas. The El Paso and Santa Teresa office has flood advisories for Dona Ana County, New Mexico. The Brownsville office has a special weather statement covering the Rio Grande Valley including Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy, Starr, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Brooks, and Kenedy counties.

Where any of that produces water on a road, the National Weather Service's Turn Around, Don't Drown guidance applies. Do not drive into water across a road.

The National Interagency Fire Center, which coordinates wildfire response across federal and state agencies, reported 64 uncontained large fires nationally in its September 8 situation report, with the national preparedness level at 4 on a 5 point scale. Year to date the country has recorded 53,665 fires and about 8.4 million acres burned, which the center puts at 125 percent of the ten year average for fire counts and 157 percent for acreage.

Nine of those uncontained fires are in the Southern geographic area, which covers this region. The largest by a wide margin is the Ross fire in Texas at 90,400 acres and 57 percent contained, with structures listed as threatened. The Railroad South fire in Oklahoma is at 515 acres and 80 percent contained, also with structures threatened. The rest are smaller and mostly wrapping up: Red Gate in Texas at 466 acres and 70 percent, Follow in Texas at 400 acres and 50 percent, West Glover in Arkansas at 499 acres and 75 percent, Lost Creek in Oklahoma at 450 acres and 90 percent, and Alexander Trail in Oklahoma at 1,600 acres and 90 percent.

In the Southwest area, New Mexico has the Frijoles fire at 15,483 acres and 79 percent contained, the Sunset fire at 145 acres and 80 percent, and the Whiskey fire at 393 acres and 42 percent.

If you live near any of these, the number that matters is not the acreage but your county's evacuation status, and that comes from your county emergency management office rather than from a national report. A fire at 57 percent containment has a live edge somewhere.

Oklahoma has an open Federal Emergency Management Agency Fire Management Assistance Grant, FM-5669, issued August 13. Fire Management Assistance Grants reimburse state and local firefighting costs. They do not pay households, which is a distinction worth knowing before spending time on an application.

No power outage events or water system notices are reported across the five states.

The National Weather Service office in Memphis has an air quality alert until 5:30 PM Central time covering Crittenden County, Arkansas, alongside Shelby County in Tennessee and DeSoto County in Mississippi. That is the West Memphis and Memphis metropolitan area. Early September air quality alerts here are typically ground level ozone, which forms on hot, sunny, stagnant afternoons, which is what today is.

Heat and ozone stack. If you have breathing trouble, both point the same direction today: indoors during the afternoon, hard exercise moved to early morning, and rescue medications where you can find them.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Alert Network archive index could not be read again this morning, so we are not able to confirm either way whether a new national health advisory has posted. The most recent notice we could open directly was issued August 11 and is written for clinicians rather than households. If you want to check for yourself, the archive lives at emergency.cdc.gov/han.

Two things are worth tracking here over the next 48 hours.

The first is rain, which sounds contradictory in a heat event and is not. The Weather Prediction Center's day 2 excessive rainfall outlook, valid Wednesday morning through Thursday morning, places a slight risk over far northeast Oklahoma around Bartlesville as part of a larger area centered on Missouri and southeast Kansas. A marginal risk covers Arkansas, more of Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, and New Mexico. Short range models put the chance of more than three inches within the slight risk area at 55 to 75 percent.

The second is drought, and it is the reason the rain matters differently than it usually would. The U.S. Drought Monitor map valid September 1 describes flash drought running from the southern Great Plains through the Mississippi Valley, with drought expanding and intensifying across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Nationally about half the country is in drought. Dry, hardened ground sheds water instead of absorbing it, so a storm that would ordinarily soak in runs off instead. That is why the same region can carry a drought designation and a flash flood risk in the same week without either being wrong.

For a household this means the flooding rules still apply during a dry spell. Know which low crossing on your route floods, and use the Turn Around, Don't Drown rule if you find water over a road.

The Weather Prediction Center's extended guidance keeps this late season warmth in place across the region into the weekend. If your air conditioning has been running hard for two days and sounding wrong, get it looked at now rather than Friday.