Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

An angler tries his luck Wednesday at Lake Waco’s Koehne Park. The lake level has fallen nearly 10 feet from normal.

Hold the pumpkin spice and leave the sweaters mothballed. Fall arrives Thursday in Waco followed by a string of record-challenging highs in the forecast.

Temperatures in the high 90s are expected for Thursday’s autumn equinox, followed by highs of up to 100 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday before cooling off Monday, said Daniel Huckaby, Fort Worth-based meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

“Unfortunately, it’s not going to look like fall, but we may get a little break from the heat with a weak cold front coming in late Sunday,” Huckaby said.

Dustin Dorsey from ABC7 News reveals how the hot temperatures are impacting the growth of pumpkins this season.

The National Weather Service forecast for Monday and Tuesday calls for lows in the low 60s and highs in the low 90s.

Already, 2022 has hit the record book as the year with 64 days of triple-digit highs, second only to 2011, which had 90. Tuesday’s high in Waco was 100, followed by 98 on Wednesday.

Dry soil and sparse vegetation have contributed to this summer’s heat waves, Huckaby said.

“The drier we are, the hotter it gets,” he said. “It’s hot in a lot of places, but it’s easier to get to 100 degrees when the soil is dry and not a lot of plants are growing.”

The cold front is not expected to bring any rain to relieve the Waco area’s low lake levels and parched pastures, Huckaby said.

“It looks bad,” he said. “That front will probably come in dry. I don’t see any appreciable chance of rain for the rest of the month.”

Huckaby holds out some hope for October, which is typically Waco’s second-wettest month after May. But the extended outlook shows October warmer and drier than usual, and a third year of the La Niña weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean boosts the chance of more of the same this winter. A weather service Climate Prediction Center report from Sept. 15 shows likely below-average rainfall and above-average temperatures from October through December.

A pier at Koehne Park is left high and dry by Lake Waco's low level.

The gauge at Waco Regional Airport has received 11.8 inches this year, 13.8 inches below normal, making this the third-driest year-to-date period in history. Since summer began June 22, the gauge has received 3.2 inches, mostly from a series of showers late last month and early this month.

That rain was like a Band-Aid on the ongoing drought, though a welcome one, McLennan County AgriLife extension agent Shane McLellan said. Some hay fields have greened up enough to cut and bale, though armyworms remain a threat. Meanwhile, ranchers who held on to their herds are enjoying good calf prices.

But McLellan said the rains were uneven, and some producers, especially west of Crawford, missed the rain. He expects the drought to continue for the coming weeks.

“The weather has been so unpredictable, it seems to be off any pattern,” he said.

Lake Waco has continued to decline through September to 61% of its capacity, despite water-use restrictions by the city of Waco and its suburbs.

The lake on Wednesday stood at 452.12 feet above sea level and is on track within the next week to drop to 10 feet below its normal level of 462 feet.

Rules limiting use of water sprinklers to two days per week began in mid-July under the city of Waco’s Stage 2 drought restrictions, and it has made a difference, city Utilities Director Lisa Tyer said. In an email response to the Tribune-Herald, Tyer said water use has been reduced 12% to 14% in high-use areas.

“With the unseasonably warm temperatures, our customers have done a great job of reducing and complying with the conservation/drought restrictions,” she wrote.

The evaporation rate from Lake Waco normally exceeds usage in the summer. Assuming declining evaporation rates this fall, the city of Waco projects Lake Waco will not reach the Stage 3 level of 449 feet until January, though it could be earlier or later, Tyer said. The city manager also could move to Stage 3 for Waco, and cities that buy water from Waco, before the lake drops that low, based on the fall forecast calling for less rain than normal, she said.

Among other restrictions, Stage 3 of the drought plan would limit residential watering to one day a week.

Experts at Climate Central say warmer oceans have led to more tropical systems that rapidly intensify and cause more damage along America’s coastlines.

Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

J.B. Smith is the the Tribune-Herald managing editor. A native of Sulphur Springs, he attended Southwestern University and joined the Tribune-Herald in 1997. He and his wife, Bethany, live in Waco and have two children.

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

Waco police arrested a 19-year-old man on an intoxication manslaughter charge after a crash that left one person dead early Saturday morning i…

A development agreement the Waco City Council will vote on Tuesday for the housing and retail project at the former Floyd Casey Stadium site i…

The Waco City Council is set Tuesday to approve selling a 10-acre lot at 1324 La Salle Ave. for $2 million to The Salvation Army, which plans …

Here's a list of people who were indicted Thursday by a McLennan County grand jury.

A Waco man accused of shooting his common-law wife in 2019 while their three children were in an adjacent room will stand trial for murder this week.

Jesus Rodriguez spent the days before Mexican Independence Day perfecting his chiles en nogada game.

On the first day of trial testimony for a Waco man accused of shooting his common-law wife in 2019 while their three children were in an adjac…

An expert analyzed bullets that killed Sherrell Carter, but not the gun that fired them, jurors learned Wednesday during a morning of forensic…

McLennan County commissioners are making $15 an hour the least anyone can make working for the county. Commissioners already voted to give all…

“Our whole deal was that everybody has dignity. Nobody’s excluded.”

An angler tries his luck Wednesday at Lake Waco’s Koehne Park. The lake level has fallen nearly 10 feet from normal.

A pier at Koehne Park is left high and dry by Lake Waco's low level.

Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.