2012 ties mark for warmest year on record in DFW

By Steve Campbell

sfcampbell@star-telegram.com

The frigid Arctic blast that brought a white Christmas had just enough frosty oomph to keep 2012 from standing alone as Dallas-Fort Worth's warmest year on record.

Instead, it will finish in a dead heat with 2006, when the exact same mean temperature of 69.3 degrees was recorded.

"It's a tie. 2012 is still the warmest on record; it just has to share the podium," said Dan Huckabee, a climate specialist with National Weather Service office in Fort Worth.

But the year can claim a No. 1 ranking with the highest average low temperature of 58.6 degrees, slipping past 58.4 degrees in 1998.

While not as memorable as the blistering summer of 2011 that included a record 71 100-degree days, 2006 and 2012 were both warmer across the course of the year, Huckabee said.

This year, October was the only month with below-normal temperatures. The summer included 34 100-degree days and the warmth extended deep into December, with record high temps on Dec. 1, 2 and 19.

The high of 78 on Dec. 19 was followed by a low of 22 on Dec. 26, the year's lowest temperature.

"We were ahead of 2006 most of the last couple of months, but we were colder than normal after Christmas. That was really the difference," Huckabee said.

Strangely, winter, not summer, is to blame for the over-the-top DFW temperatures in 2012.

"We didn't have much of a winter," he said.

March (64.3 degrees) was 6.7 degrees above normal, April (70.3) was 4.8 degrees above average, and January (50.4) was 4.5 degrees above the norm. It was the warmest March since 1910.

Records in DFW go back to 1898.

All told, Dallas-Fort Worth saw plenty of chart toppers this year with nine record highs, one record low (39 degrees on Oct. 8), three record low maximum temperatures and four days of record precipitation. The high for the year was the record 108 on Aug. 9.

There were also 18 record high minimums, including 83 degrees on June 27, the highest daily low temperature of the year.

North Texas wasn't alone in feeling the heat. 2012 is virtually certain to be the warmest on record across the contiguous United States, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

In November, the center noted that December temperatures would need to be more than 1 degree colder than the coldest December (1983) for 2012 not to break the record.

The January-November period was the warmest first 11 months of any year on record for the U.S. The national temperature of 57.1 degrees was 3.3 degrees above the 20th century average, and 1 degree above the previous record warm January-November of 1934.

In Texas, the warmest-year race is still too close to call, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said Monday.

The recent cold might have been just enough to keep 2012's mean temperature from supplanting the record 67.5 degrees recorded in 1921, he said.

"It's definitely going to be within the top three, probably within a tenth of a degree one way or the other," he said.

Nielsen-Gammon said the warmth is likely to continue.

"The Climate Prediction Center forecast is tilted toward warm temperatures through summer," he said.

The same can be said for the persistent drought conditions across much of Texas.

Almost all of the state is abnormally dry, and 88 percent is in moderate drought while 34 percent is in the extreme category, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor.

"It is going to take a lot of rain over the next few months to get reservoirs back where they should be," Nielsen-Gammon said.

"If it stays dry for another month, reservoirs will be below where they were last year."

As of Monday, the Tarrant Regional Water District's reservoir capacity was at 77 percent, down from 78 percent on Dec. 14. Stage 1 outdoor water restrictions go into effect when the water supply drops to 75 percent.

Steve Campbell, 817-390-7981

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