An outflow boundary from overnight Oklahoma storms has pushed south of the Red River, giving a few lucky Texans a shot at storms today and tomorrow. Burn bans are up to 174 counties. It’s your Texas Weather Roundup for Friday, August 21, 2026.
TODAY’S STORM CHANCES
A rain-cooled outflow boundary moved south of the Red River into parts of North and Northeast Texas late this morning, courtesy of overnight storms in Oklahoma.
That boundary could fire off a few afternoon thunderstorms across Northeast Texas, East Texas, parts of North Texas, and maybe as far south as the northern Brazos Valley this afternoon and early evening. Most folks stay dry — it’s a 15 to 30% chance of a storm nearby. If one forms near you, expect gusty winds, dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning, brief rain, and maybe a few hours of sub-triple-digit heat.
SATURDAY
The High-Resolution Rapid Refresh is being fairly ambitious about pushing storms south into Northwest Texas, Texoma, North Texas and Northeast Texas, with another chance of pop-ups across East Texas and possibly Southeast Texas. This is a mesoscale-driven setup, not a written-in-stone forecast.
STORM HAZARDS
Any of these storms can produce localized damaging wind gusts — microbursts — exceeding 50 mph, along with brief heavy rain, dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning and maybe small hail. Given how dry things are, lightning strikes could ignite fires.
On area lakes, be ready for sudden wind shifts and a sudden uptick in wind speeds. When thunder roars, get your keister indoors.
FIRE DANGER & 174 BURN BANS
174 of 254 Texas counties are now under a burn ban, and more will be added through today and early next week. Burning conditions don’t change over the next few days, even if you get lucky with a nearby storm.
Fire danger today is Extreme across East Texas and Northeast Texas, including the Piney Woods. Any fires that get going will be very difficult to control until conditions improve tonight with humidity recovery and the loss of daytime heating. Everyone else is mostly Moderate to High.
Saturday brings Moderate to High fire danger statewide. Sunday is the same story, though Very High to locally Extreme conditions could develop across South Texas, Central Texas, East Texas and the Panhandle.
THE PATTERN — AND A HINT OF CHANGE
The upper-level heat dome is centered a bit west of Texas right now. That lets a few upper-level disturbances rotate around its eastern side, which is exactly why a few of you get storms today and tomorrow.
The heat continues unabated and reintensifies early next week. But toward the second half of next week there are early indications it may shift far enough west for a modest pattern change, with thunderstorm chances returning to western portions of the state. Early days, but it’s the first hint of movement we’ve had.
TROPICS & RAIN
The Gulf is shut down. Good news is no hurricanes. Bad news is we