Tag Archives: drought

• For as long as people have been taking weather measurements in Texas, there has never been a summer hotter than the summer of 2011

For as long as people have been taking weather measurements in Texas, there has never been a summer hotter than the summer of 2011. As wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt documents in his latest blog post, seventeen major cities in Texas recorded their hottest summer on record in 2011. Most of these stations had records extending back more than 100 years, and several of the records were smashed by an amazing 3.4°F–at Lubbock and at Wichita Falls. Neighboring states also experienced unprecedented heat, with Oklahoma recording America’s hottest month by any state in recorded history during July, and Shreveport, Louisiana breaking its record for hottest month by 3°F in August. Mr. Burt commented to me: ” I do not believe I have ever seen a site with a long period of record, like Shreveport, where records go back to 1874, break its warmest single month on record by an astonishing 3°. This is unheard of. Usually when a site breaks its single month temperature record, we are talking about tenths of a degree, rarely a whole degree, let alone 3 degrees! Hard to believe, frankly.” Texas has also had its worst fire season on record, with over 3.5 million acres burned this year, and it’s driest 1-year period in recorded history.

An Interesting Fact

San Angelo and Lubbock, Texas both recorded their single hottest month on record in June. Then in July those records in turn were broken. And then, in August, their July records were broken! In other words, in over 100 years of records for both cities, their three hottest-single-months were respectively, August, July, and June 2011. I do not believe this has occurred at any American weather station in recorded history.

Many sites, especially in the Southeast, recorded their warmest summer on record in 2010 only to have it broken this past summer in 2011. Given the long periods of record of these sites, this quite an accomplishment.