AccuWeather.com

By Heather Buchman, Meteorologist

Apr 27, 2011; 12:12 PM ET

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Smoke rises from an uncontrolled wildfire burning near Possum Kingdom, Texas, Tuesday, April 19, 2011. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

As Texas continues to deal with one of the worst wildfire situations in its history, a return of sizzling heat, gusty winds and bone-dry conditions is renewing an extreme threat for the spread and development of new fires.

Winds Tuesday were gusting between 40 and 50 mph across western Texas, while temperatures soared into the 90s or 100s.

The Texas Forest Service warned that evacuations are common under these conditions and that responders, emergency planners and residents should be prepared to leave immediately.

Today, the greatest fire danger is shifting into southern Texas as a front dips southward through the state, ushering in extremely dry air. While winds will not be nearly as strong as in western Texas Tuesday, they will still be gusty enough to create an elevated fire threat.

Winds will generally be out of the north or northwest today at 15 to 25 mph.

Much of the state will catch a break Thursday before winds pick back up across western Texas Friday. This time, winds will generally be out of the southwest in far western Texas and out of the south in areas farther east.

As of early Tuesday morning, there were still 11 large uncontained wildfires burning in western, northern and eastern Texas, along with numerous smaller fires elsewhere across the state.

The largest blazes are the Rock House, PK Complex and Wildcat fires which, combined, have scorched more than half a million acres.

The Rock House fire is scorching a large area near Fort Davis and Marfa in western Texas. The Wildcat fire is burning north of San Angelo, while the PK Complex fire covers an area of Big Country, west of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

The PK Complex fire has destroyed hundreds of homes and outbuildings near Possum Kingdom Lake.

Since January, wildfires have scorched almost 1.5 million acres, according to the Texas Forest Service.

Texas is in the midst of one of the worst droughts, in terms of the depth and expanse of drought conditions, since the early 1900s.

Dan Byrd, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, Miss., said, "This is an unprecedented drought situation [in terms of] how widespread it is and the depth of the drought. We haven't seen anything like this for the state overall since the early 1900s."

According to the latest release from the U.S. Drought Monitor, valid April 19, 2011, the entire state of Texas was in a drought. Most of the state is experiencing severe or exceptional drought conditions.

This map is the latest release from the U.S. Drought Monitor and shows all of Texas in a drought.

With the AccuWeather.com Long-Range Forecasting Team predicting drier-than-normal conditions to persist right through summer, improvement in the dire situation will not come soon.

Perhaps the only good news in the longer range is the fact that high wind events tend to be less frequent in Texas during the summer than spring. Gusty and rapidly shifting winds cause fires to spread and burn out of control while posing major challenges to firefighting crews.