Weather News

Fort Worth wins top honors on list of hottest cities in U.S. this week

So hot this week.

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Texas wins this week with three cities earning top slots on a list of the hottest cities in the U.S. for June 27.

According toThe Washington Post, Dallas was the No. 1 most hottest city for the day, followed by Fort Worth and Austin. San Antonio and Houston came in on the list at No. 5 and No. 6.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that all five of those cities also have their own local CultureMap bureaus? #hot #buzzy

Wednesday, June 28 is expected to get even hotter. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat advisory for Dallas, Collin, Denton, and Tarrant counties, though 8 pm Wednesday. Dallas is supposed to reach 107 degrees, with a heat index of 115 degrees.

As Ben Noll, a meteorologist with New Zealand’s National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, tweeted, Texas will be hotter on June 28 than 99 percent of the rest of the world, including the Sahara Desert and the Persian Gulf.

The cause — and also the buzzy hot weather phrase for 2023 — is a "Heat Dome." A heat dome is where hot air gets trapped into a certain space. The Associated Press says it occurs when “stationary high pressure with warm air combines with warmer than usual air in the Gulf of Mexico and heat from the sun that is nearly directly overhead.”

Climate scientist Andrew Pershing says that what makes this heat wave unusual is how long it has lasted, stating, "There have been places in Texas that have had more than two weeks of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which are just really unusual temperatures for this time of year even in a region that is used to heat."

But the year 2022 was also bad, with many cities across South Texas experiencing the hottest May on record.

Texas is coming on strong for breaking records in 2023, besting record-breakers from prior years such as the Pacific Northwest which experienced record-breaking heat waves in 2022, and Reno, which had the hottest night in history in July 2022.

According to ABC13 in Houston, Wednesday will be the 16th day in a row with some kind of heat-related weather alert for southeast Texas. In Austin, the heat index hit 116 degrees on June 15, the highest on record for the city. Other Texas cities have already broken records this year, including Del Rio, San Angelo, and Laredo.

It's not just Texas: A story inThe Guardiannotes that nearby states including New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri are also experiencing scorching heat, with the National Weather Service predicting temperatures to rise further and stay this way through the 4th of July.

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Death Penalty

Tarrant County man gets death for murder of convenience store owner

Tarrant County Sheriff's Office

Christopher Turner

A man received the death penalty for his 2020 cold-blooded execution of a convenience store owner.

According to a release from the office of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Christopher Karon Turner, 48, to death on November 20 for executing convenience store owner Anwar Ali during a robbery. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorneys Charles Boulware and Allenna Bangs represented the state.

On March 27, 2020, at around 6:15 am, Turner, a convicted felon, wore a surgical mask and a glove and entered the Super Big Country Mart in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County south of Fort Worth. There, he held a gun to the back of Anwar Ali, the 62-year-old store owner, and walked him through the store.

Ali did everything Turner demanded, including opening the cash register to give him money. And yet Turner forced Ali into the bathroom and onto his knees, and shot him in the neck. Ali was discovered, dead in the bathroom, about an hour later.

Turner fled the store in Ali's Toyota minivan with the money from the register and Ali's wallet. In the van, he found more than $50,000 cash in a black bag. Over the next few days, Turner went on a shopping spree, buying cars, jewelry, drugs, clothes, and more. He and others used cash and a credit card that belonged to Ali.

Turner fled to Colorado where U.S. Marshals arrested him. On his body they found a firearm which was determined to be the murder weapon.

"This was a premeditated, cold-blooded murder," Boulware told the jury. "From the moment he was charged with this crime, he has tried to escape responsibility."

Bangs noted that before this trial began, Turner obtained the names of jurors and their telephone numbers, and gave them to an inmate charged with murder. At the trial on November 20, as Bangs addressed the jury, Turner tried to hold up a sign to the jury but was handcuffed by Sheriff's deputies who removed him from the courtroom, while he yelled out "she lied."

Ali came to the United States from Pakistan decades ago to pursue the American dream. Ali's son, Hussein, spoke in the courtroom after the death penalty was announced. "Thank you for giving us justice," Ali said. "I hope there are no more devils like this person."