We had a record temperature of 99 on South Padre yesterday with near saturation humidity putting heat index at about 115 I would guess. We've had a thick haze in the air for days which is smoke from Mexico and Central America fires. How widespread this was I don't know but they were experiencing it up in Port Aransas 125 miles north of here.
WE had sinilar phenomenon about 8-9 years ago in May which produced air pol lution alerts all the way to St Louis. I had a friend at the time who was captaining an oil field supply boat in Bay of Campeche in southern Gulf. They were operating on radar as visibility was closing down to under 100 feet.
I drove south with a friend into Mexico to check it all out but we got bored with choking and headed west to mountains after 300 miles.. At Aquissmon a Huastecan town where I have friends at foothills of Sierra Madres the smoke stopped but it was 123 degrees in jungle with high humidity Walking more than 200 feet was problematic.
We haven't had any substantive rain here in months and yesterday we had dust storms where I live in Port Isabel. The humidity was so high however the dust stuck to things ( like my truck and boat) as mud. I don't believe I've seen blowing mud before.
A similar phenomenon is occuring with haze we're experiencing as smoke particles are forming hygroscopic nuclei (getting coated with water) and becoming fog. Very occasionally one gets a whiff of something burning.
That's probably hell approaching.
Walt