Why is it getting hot so early in Texas? And is this heat a record for us?
After the Texas heat ramps up on Saturday, the coming week will feature multiple days of unseasonable warmth, when Texans will likely experience the warmest days so far in 2022, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth says.
On April 5, Dallas-Fort Worth hit 95 degrees for the first time this year. But this weekend’s temperatures could reach into the triple digits, as high as 105 degrees in some parts of Texas.
“Our current forecast projects near record high temperatures, particularly Mother’s Day through Tuesday, during which DFW’s high temperatures are likely to reach or exceed 95 degrees,” said Daniel Huckaby, a meteorologist with NWS Fort Worth.
How unusual is this early heat wave?
NWS forecasts temperatures in the mid to high 90s from Saturday to Thursday, meaning we’ll have six straight days of weather that’s 90 degrees or more. While that’s normal for the summer, we usually don’t get that many hot days in a row during the spring. The earliest we’ve had that many consecutive 90-degree days was April 30 to May 5, 1943.
The extreme hot weather may even extend past Thursday, with seven consecutive 90+ days, making it a new record for this early in the year.
But this isn’t the earliest we’ve had a triple-digit day. We saw our earliest 100-degree day on March 9, 1911. That was also the earliest we had five consecutive days of 90 degrees or more.
Dallas-Fort Worth may have four consecutive days of 95 degrees or more during the heat wave, making it the earliest in the year that’s ever occurred. The earliest we’ve had three consecutive days of 95 degrees or more was in April 2006.
Why are we getting such hot weather in May?
Huckaby says the drought is mainly to blame for the spring heat wave. When drought conditions occur early in the year, the onset of summer heat often occurs earlier than normal, he said. Ridges, elongated areas of relatively high pressure, bring warmer and drier weather.
“The upper ridging that is so well correlated to our summer heat is a seasonal artifact of global circulation, but its development is impacted by the weather beneath it. It’s a bit of a chicken-or-egg scenario,” Huckaby said. “Early season ridging can be responsible for a dry spring. But if we’re dry (thus, warmer than normal) during the spring, this can ‘induce’ ridging earlier in the season. This is a positive feedback mechanism as the ridging reinforces the warming at the surface.”
Does the early heat signal a hot summer ahead?
All signs point to a hotter than normal summer.
Dry springs like the one we’re in are more likely to lead to hot summers, Huckaby said. The Climate Prediction Center projects a warmer than normal summer this year.
There also seems to be a connection between heat and windier-than-normal springs, which we had this year, Huckaby says. This spring’s wind speeds resemble those of 2011. That summer was the hottest on record for Dallas-Fort Worth, breaking a 1980s record for the greatest number of 100-degree days.
This story was originally published May 6, 2022 at 12:19 PM.
