Last year, Dallas-Fort Worth saw a total of eight days with temperatures in the triple digits, according to the National Weather Service.
The region set a record in 2011, when it saw a staggering 71 days of temperatures over 100 degrees. This summer, the region could be on track to meet or surpass that record.
That's according to Monique Sellers with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
“We could still get some relief that comes in and would kind of knock us below that 2011 year," Sellers said. "Right now, we are on track, and we are already seeing a lot of these days where we're either challenging the record, or we're breaking and setting these records each day."
Several factors are contributing to the scorching heat. Stagnant air, along with sunny days and a lack of rain, is creating long spells of triple-digit temperatures.
State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said this heat wave is also partly caused by the most intense drought the state has seen since 2011.
"When the ground is dry, all the sun's energy goes into heating the soil rather than evaporating any available moisture," Nielsen-Gammon said.
Climate change is also adding to the extended period of hot weather, which could happen more frequently as the planet warms.
Arne Winguth, an environmental science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, said heat waves like this one could become more prolonged and expanded.
"Depending on which future climate scenario you are looking at, it could be by the end of of the century [that] a heat wave could be three times longer than compared to our historical records," Winguth said.
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