Texas Weather History

In general, Texas weather has remained consistent for the recorded history of the state. However, extremes have also been considered “normal” for the area.

Warm air from the gulf, colliding with cold Arctic air from the north, can lead to sudden outbreaks of severe weather. With few natural features to disrupt weather patterns, massive fronts can march unchallenged over vast portions of the state. This can lead to conditions that can change quite rapidly and make a lie of even the best meteorological forecasts.

One such instance of radical changes occurred in 1933 in Clarendon, Texas, located in the High Plains area. The town saw a 75 degree temperature variation on February 6 of that year, going from a high of 69 degrees to a low of -6. Sudden fronts such as this commonly drop temperatures as much as 20 degrees in one hour.

Texas is also a land of extreme variation between the northern and southern parts of the state. For instance, in late November, 1906, temperatures of 101 degrees were recorded in south Texas and -9 in north Texas. In February, 1960, Rio Grande City reported a high of 102 degrees, and a mere three days later, 8 – 10 inches of snow fell in south and central Texas.

Texas has a history of hurricanes making landfall along the Gulf Coast. The most famous was the Galveston hurricane in 1900, which killed at least 8,000 people. The town responded by building a seawall and actually raising the elevation of the island. In 2008, when Hurricane Ike hit, the storm surge topped the seawall and caused extensive damage but few injuries, due in part to a massive evacuation effort that left few people on the island.

The town of Indianola was basically wiped off the map by two hurricanes, one in 1875 that killed an estimated 400 people, and another one in 1886 that damaged or destroyed every building in the port city led to its abandonment. Corpus Christi was struck by a hurricane in 1919 that left nearly 300 dead, and in 1971 Hurricane Carla made landfall near the city. Carla’s 160 mph winds and storm surge caused more than $450 million in damages.

Heavy rains along the coast, sometimes triggered by tropical storms, can also cause severe damage along the coast. In 1994, Houston received more than 29 inches of rain and the resulting flooding left the city cut off from the rest of the state. Seven years later, Tropical Storm Allison caused more than $5 billion in damage and killed 22 people due to flooding.

Periodic droughts are a way of life in Texas. The earliest one was recorded in 1756, when the San Gabriel River dried up and the mission abandoned. Less than fifty years later, in 1822, early settlers in Stephen F. Austin’s group faced starvation when a drought destroyed their crops. Only by resorting to hunting was the settlement to survive.

The northwest corner of the panhandle was part of the famous “Dust Bowl” on the 1930’s, and significant droughts have also occurred in 1886 (lasting until 1887), 1893, and 1917. Perhaps the worst drought in the recorded history of Texas began in 1950 and lasted until 1957.

Converging weather patterns can lead to bizarre instances of wind damages. In 1986, straight line winds estimated at 90 mph capsized boats and caused 5 drowning deaths. And in 1985, Delta Flight 191, while on a routine final approach to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, was slammed into the ground by a wind shear, or microburst, killing 135 people.

Texas has more tornadoes than any other state in the union, and averages nearly 140 per year, mostly in the Panhandle and northern part of the state. An F-4 tornado struck Wichita Falls in 1979, causing extensive damage and killing more than 40 people. In 1957, a twister estimated as an F-3 or possibly F-4 (the Fujita rating scale was not in effect at the time) hit Dallas.

This tornado stayed on the ground for almost 45 minutes and took its time to carve a 21 mile long path of destruction, killing 10 people. The most-photographed tornado in history (up to that point) provided much evidence for meteorologists to study and disproved many theories that had been held about tornadoes.

In 1994, a devastating F-4 tornado struck Lancaster, a suburb of Dallas. Its historic town square was virtually destroyed and three people lost their lives. An F-5 tornado that hit Waco in 1953 remains one of the deadliest in Texas history. Nearly 600 people were injured and more than 110 killed, over half of them in the downtown area where shoppers sought refuge in stores and office that collapsed in the twister’s fury.

The history of Texas weather is filled with freak occurrences and extreme incidences of weather. Overall, however, the climate has remained stable for the three hundred years or so that there have been any recorded information preserved.