The tale of Texas has been told in multiple posts. It is an amazing drought in an amazing year.

Even though it may occupy the record, the temperature trend for 116 years has been flat in summer in Texas (NOAA NCDC Climate at a Glance).

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Here are some other stories from further north, first Des Moines, Iowa..

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DES MOINES IA
254 PM CDT WED AUG 3 2011

..UPDATED HEAT WAVE RECORDS FOR DES MOINES

A COLD FRONT MOVED THROUGH THE AREA YESTERDAY...AUGUST
2ND...BREAKING A SWELTERING HEAT WAVE THAT HAD PERSISTED FOR THE
PREVIOUS SEVERAL WEEKS. WARM WEATHER HAS PREVAILED SINCE THE END OF
JUNE BUT THE MOST SEVERE HEAT SET IN ON JULY 15 WITH LITTLE RELIEF
UNTIL TODAY. DESPITE NOT BREAKING ANY DAILY TEMPERATURE RECORDS
DURING THIS STRETCH...THE DURATION OF THE HEAT WAVE AND VERY WARM
OVERNIGHT LOW TEMPERATURES HAS ALLOWED DES MOINES TO APPROACH OR
BREAK A NUMBER OF ITS ALL TIME RECORDS AS DETAILED BELOW.

ESSENTIALLY DES MOINES HAS JUST EXPERIENCED ONE OF ITS MOST SEVERE
PROLONGED HEAT WAVES SINCE THE DUST BOWL...AND BY SOME MEASURES ONE
OF ITS WORST EVER WITH RECORDS GOING BACK TO 1878. THE FOLLOWING
RECORDS ARE THROUGH YESTERDAY...AUGUST 2ND.

HIGHEST AVERAGE DAILY LOW TEMPERATURE FOR ANY CALENDAR MONTH -
NEW RECORD 73.1 DEGREES IN JULY 2011
PREVIOUS RECORD 72.5 DEGREES IN JULY 1936

HIGHEST MINIMUM DAILY LOW TEMPERATURE FOR ANY CALENDAR MONTH -
NEW RECORD 67 DEGREES IN JULY 2011
PREVIOUS RECORD 65 DEGREES IN JULY 1935

MOST CONSECUTIVE DAYS WITH TEMPERATURE AT OR ABOVE 67 DEGREES -
NEW RECORD 34 DAYS (AND COUNTING) FROM JUNE 30-PRESENT
PREVIOUS RECORD 22 DAYS FROM JULY 9-30 1901

MOST CONSECUTIVE DAYS WITH TEMPERATURE AT OR ABOVE 70 DEGREES -
NEW RECORD 19 DAYS (AND COUNTING) FROM JULY 15-PRESENT
PREVIOUS RECORD 18 DAYS FROM JULY 17-AUGUST 3 1987

MOST CONSECUTIVE DAYS WITH TEMPERATURE AT OR ABOVE 74 DEGREES -
NEW RECORD 14 DAYS FROM JULY 15-28 2011
PREVIOUS RECORD 13 DAYS FROM JULY 4-16 1936

HOTTEST 19-DAY STRETCHES IN TERMS OF AVERAGE TEMPERATURE -
1. 88.8 DEGREES IN JULY 1936*
2. 87.5 DEGREES IN JULY 1901*
3. 86.5 DEGREES IN JULY 1934*
4. 85.0 DEGREES FROM JULY 15-AUGUST 2 2011
5. 84.7 DEGREES IN JULY-AUGUST 1955

***********************

Some of this is elevated moisture content from strong evpotranspiration, some UHI. The record highs for Des Moines for June and July still show the dominace of the 1930s. No new records have been set since 1988.

Notice those years like 1901, 1934, 1936, 1955 keep popping up. The years around the turn of the century into the 20th century had some wild weather including the record arctic outbreak of 1899, the great Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the super heat of 1901.

Sometimes extremes cluster. We had the dust bowl of the 1930s, the heat, drought and and hurricanes of the 1950s, the cold and snow of the 1960s and 1970s, the devastating freezes of the 1980s.

We are seeing some great variance or extemes in recent years, perhaps related to the low solar. The extremes have come with low intraseasonal variability, which amplifies the extremes. When you get a lot of intraseaosnal variability, it tends to balance out. The ridges and troughs tend to anchor and keep some areeas wet, some too dry, some with record heat or warmth in wintert or record cold. Here in the US, we had the coldest April to June on record in the northwest and the one of the hottest in the Texas and Oklahoma. June was hot in the south but coolish in the north but July was warmer/warmest in the north mainly due to elevated nightime temperatures with all that evapotranspiration from vergation that exploded with growth after the wet srping (with the help of increased CO2, critcal for photosynthesis..

Even in Michigan, we had a record July. It will sit atop the list of warmest July's in Detroit. It was third warmest in Flint, fourth at Saginaw.. Only one record high was set in Detroit on July 21st when it hit 100F. Below is the table from NWS of some southern Michigan cities' hottest summers. This year will rank and 2011 was included displacing the last year in the graphs that follow.