Elijah Nichols rode a skateboard on Chestnut Street in East Austin on the way home of the hot moving factory on May 13, when temperatures reached 101 degrees a day, marking the city’s first day of Trinity heat in 2025.
Jay Janner/American-Statesman
In Texas, summer should be hissing under a never-ending hot dome, with extremely high temperatures and abundant sunshine. When it doesn't happen like this summer, we tend to ask, why is the weather in Austin so weird?
Texas Heat explained: Hot Domes take over Texas in the summer – but are they worse than other states?
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Summer vacation (so far)
The early heat wave in May brought our first two days of triple-digit temperatures, when Austin hit 101 from May 13 to 14. At the time, many people were worried that this would lay the foundation for a stuffy summer.
But while the daily high temperatures of 26 days on June 30 were considered above normal, no one hit or exceeded 100 degrees, the first time since 2019.
The temperatures in central Texas were mild thanks to the wet weather patterns in the Lone Star State in early July. It brings rainfall and cooler temperatures every day than the 30-year climate.
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But this also brought about a trend of atmospheric moisture, triggering a flash flood on July 4 and July 12. In the late month, we still recorded triple-digit calories for several days, including a 102-degree agile reading on July 31. July, overall, only 7 days of seasonality or above is the seasonal average, making it a cool and wet July. More than 6 inches of rain were recorded, or about 4 inches higher than normal.
August is considered typical so far, with temperatures close to the seasonal average of 99 degrees and only five 100 degrees.
The coolest summer?
Is this the coolest (weather) summer in Austin? Not exactly.
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Compared to past weather summers (calendar months in June, July and August), Austin’s 13 years since 2012 (i.e. we recorded 90 days of triple-digit temperatures). But since the record in 1898, we still have the 23rd warmest summer.
Central Texans have a biased view of “typical” summers, as many of the hottest summers have happened over the past 25 years. The 10 warmest summers in Austin have happened since 2000, including three of the past five years.
Temperatures have reached 12 times so far this year, but compared to last year, we have recorded almost twice as much as 21 days by summer. Of the 100-degree temperatures of these 21 days, 4 were in June, July 10, and August 7 days, which was the 12-day winning streak record of 100 degrees, producing the hottest temperature of 2024: 109 degrees on August 21.
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What is the coolest summer in Austin like?
Since June, the average temperature (average of daily lows and highs) has been 85.4 degrees. The hottest summer was in 2011, with an average of 89.5 degrees, and the coolest one was in 1907, with a 78.5 degrees.
Can you imagine a Texas summer with an average of 80 degrees? The summer of 1907 was the only one to reach this score, and from 1904 to 1908, Austin did not record a single 100-degree day. Overall, Austin recorded 12 summers when temperatures never reached triple digits, the most recent in 1987.
As clouds and rain enter the picture, Austin's temperature will be near normal or slightly cooler.
Weatherbell
Why is it cool?
Tropical lows, rare cold fronts, abundant atmospheric moisture and the neutral stage of El Niño-Southern oscillation, this summer, neither El Niño nor La Niña exists. This setting is like summer 2021, which is the mildest in the city.
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Overall, when ENSO is neutral, global weather patterns tend to produce more typical or seasonal conditions than extremes associated with El Niño or La Niña. In the context, summers in 2022, 2023 and 2024 are considered LaNiña summers, which have higher calories.
Short-term and remote predictions in central Texas look wet and mild. Currently, we are monitoring tropical interference in the Gulf of Mexico and are expected to enter South Texas on Friday. This will bring tropical moisture into central Texas and bring heavy showers on Saturday.
There may be active weather next week, with another storm system entering Texas mid-week. With the forecasted clouds and rainfall, the temperature will remain below 100 degrees.
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