Texas 34 days over 100F

The National Weather Service chief calls it a heat wave more intense than any he can remember — and nowhere is it being felt as intensely as in Texas, where high electricity use triggered power outages Thursday and Dallas saw its 34th straight day of triple-digit temperatures.

Dallas is also well on its way to breaking its record of 42 straight days at 100 or above, set in 1980. The Weather Channel's forecast through Aug. 13, which would be day 43, shows no day with a high below 102 degrees.

And it's not just Dallas, or even Texas, for that matter. On Thursday, 14 states from Texas to Virginia were under heat alerts. Several dozen deaths have been tied to the heat since early July.

Though it is hot across much of the South, the "bull's-eye" of the heat is being felt in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, said National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Jurecka.

Even before the heat wave, drought has withered much of Texas and Oklahoma.

Texas state climatologist John Nielson-Gammon said the current drought is now the worst since Texas started keeping records on rainfall in 1895.

"Never before has so little rain been recorded prior to and during the primary growing season for crops, plants, and warm-season grasses," he said on Thursday.

"Unfortunately, we're in a vicious cycle of dry weather leading to hot temperatures and a lack of thunderstorms," he said.

The drought worsened this week in neighboring Oklahoma where "exceptional drought" covered 64.3 percent of the state, up from 52.2 percent a week earlier.

Wildfires were reported in Oklahoma while the U.S. Agriculture Department this week rated the state's emerging cotton crop at 88 percent poor to very poor.

Parts of Texas received rain showers of up to 5 inches in recent days, providing some relief in what has been called the most severe one-year drought ever in the Lone Star State.

Cattle ranchers in the region have sold the animals to feedlots because there is no pasture in which to graze, while some farmers have abandoned corn acreage due to the dry weather.