When you’re talking about summer in North Texas, it all comes down to counting the 100-degree days.
And although summer officially starts Tuesday, triple-digit pain, on average, doesn’t arrive until June 30. August is the worst month overall, averaging 7.3 days.
In the glory years of 2004 and 2002, the thermometer hit 100 only once at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the official reporting station. But if statistics offer any clue, this summer will be less comfortable.
“We got spoiled last summer,” acknowledged Tom Kircher, a National Weather Service meteorological technician.
The weather service predicts an average summer, meaning 16 days of triple-digit heat and somewhere between 2 and 2.5 inches of rain per month through September.
But Steve Fano, a NWS meteorologist, said the exceedingly dry April, May and June do not bode well for temperate weather. He explained that as the soil dries out, the sun’s energy no longer goes into evaporating moisture stored in vegetation and instead just heats up the ground.
“We’re coming out in the hole, which is never a good place to be,” he said. “It would be very beneficial for the heat if we could get some appreciable rain.”
Last year, 10.49 inches of rain fell in June, when the normal is 3.23 inches. This month, 1.14 inches has been recorded, and the last appreciable rain was June 5.
“It’s pretty much a one-to-one correlation that if you have a dry summer you’re going to have a hot summer. At least in North Texas,” he said.
This week’s forecast calls for temperatures in the high 90s, but no rainfall.
Kircher said multiple factors go into whether a summer will be wild or mild, including the positioning of a semi-permanent high-pressure system over the United States and other upper-level air patterns. But he noted that they must shift around to create average temperatures, or the weather would always be the same.
He recalls getting a phone call about the weather on a specific date from people planning a wedding the following year.
“They honestly expect the weather to be the same this June the 19th as the previous,” Kircher said. “I had to gently explain to them if that was the case there wouldn’t be a need for forecasters.”
In terms of counting three-digit days, the worst years of recent memory were 1998 (56 days of misery) and 2000 (another 46). But the one for the record books was 1980, when the century mark was reached a whopping 69 times. The high temperature twice reached a record 113 degrees. Daily records were tied or broken 29 times, according to NWS statistics.
The thing is, few people go crazy about a 99-degree day. But Fano said your body doesn’t really know the difference, particularly when humidity is factored in.
The meteorology experts offered no great explanation for the mystique of 100 degrees, even though the weather service devotes a special area on its site to the subject. Fano, who said he’s asked more about century-mark temperatures than white Christmases or snowfalls, supposed it had something to do with the number of Northern transplants who live here.
“For natives here, this is not an uncommon occurrence,” he said. “It’s just perception. It’s just what people get in their mind. You see a temperature in triple digits and it seems a lot hotter than 99, I guess.”
