Drought conditions worsen in southeast Texas

The latest analysis of drought across Texas shows the conditions are getting worse. No surprise given the lack of rain.

All of Harris county west of I-45  and most of Galveston county is classified extremely dry now.  The ground is even drier in Washington and Brazos counties, southern Colorado and Fort Bend counties and across Brazoria, Matagorda and Wharton counties. It is severely dry in eastern Harris County, most of Montgomery and Liberty counties and across Walker and San Jacinto counties.

The National Weather Service reports the last time College Station had measurable rain was on May 24!  Houston is more than seven inches below normal on rainfall this year. Galveston is more than ten inches behind.

There's rain in our forecast for the next several days, but it probably won't be a drought buster.  Initially just scattered showers will dot the area. More coverage is expected when the cool front pushes into Houston this weekend, producing more rain and dropping our temperatures back to normal.

Rice professor: Theories about global warming could be wrong

Scientists who forecast catastrophic changes in our weather due to global warming, often refer to data that suggests carbon dioxide levels will double within the next century unless we do something about it.

A new study, co-authored by a Rice University professor, says "scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect."

Gerald Dickens, an oceanographer and professor of Earth science at Rice, studied a period of rapid warming that occurred 55 million years ago, known as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. Using sediment core samples taken from around the world, Dickens and his colleagues determined carbon dioxide levels increased 70% during that period and in turn temperatures rose 13°F over a period of 10,000 years.

Applying some of the climate models in use today, Dickens' data shows that carbon dioxide could only account for half of that warming. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models," he wrote.

So if carbon dioxide alone didn't cause the warming 55 million years ago, something else helped warm the Earth. Something we haven't discovered yet and something not included in the current climate models.

Photo copyright Rice University.

Summer is starting off hotter than 1980 and 1998

Many long-time Houstonians remember how unbearably hot it was in 1980 and 1998.  We had the hottest summers on record those two years.  Could we break that record this year?

Based on the temperatures so far, this has been the hottest start to the summer.  The numbers below represent the average temperature from June 1 to July 14. So far, we running ahead of 1980 and 1998.

2009     87.03°
1980     86.87°
1998     86.10°
2005     84.81°
1906     84.70°
1982     84.53°
1953     84.50°
1994     84.43°
1960     84.33°
1964     84.26°

The hottest average temperature (which includes both the highs and lows) for the whole summer was 86.4° in 1980.  The summer of 1998 comes in at second place with an average temperature of 85.6° from June 1 through August 31. 

In the short term, we are expecting our temperatures to return to more seasonable (and reasonable) levels by the end of the week.  Thicker clouds and scattered showers will give us some much needed rain relief.

El Nino has fully developed in the Pacific

Water temperatures off the west coast of South America have warmed about 1°C above normal. That's enough to declare the official onset of El Nino.  This alters the weather patterns around the world.

Of importance to us, is the affect El Nino has on hurricanes.  West-to-east blowing winds in the upper atmosphere tend to increase when the water temps rise in the Pacific. The faster winds tear apart developing tropical systems.

Furthermore, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center expects El Nino to continue to build into the coming winter. That usually means wetter weather for us...eventually.

The graph to the right shows the output from various long-range computer models.  While the amount of warming varies among the models, they all forecast some additional warming of the water near the equator in the Pacific Ocean.

El Nino conditions develop every two to five years and usually last about 12 months. The last El Nino was in 2006.

Drought conditions worsen

All of Harris County is in a moderate drought again, that's according to NOAA and the USDA. Counties west of Houston are in an worst shape. The red colors on the map to the right indicate extreme and exceptionally dry conditions.

Altogether, the drought covers 38% of the state now. That's not as bad as it was in early April when almost 80% of the state was in a drought and over half of the state was dealing with a severe drought. 

The heavy rain at the end of April washed away the drought worries in Houston. But little rain has fallen since and little rain is in the forecast. Unless the jet stream pattern suddenly changes, expect conditions to worsen over the next few weeks.

June 2009: The second warmest on record in Houston

It's official-- June was hot!

With an average temperature of 85.6°, June 2009 was the second warmest* on record at Bush Intercontinental Airport.  It was warmer than June 1980 when the average temp was 85.1° and June 1998 when the average temp was 85.5°. By the way, the "average temperature" is a combination of the highs AND the lows.  The average high temperature was 96.7°.

* I previously wrote that 2009 was the warmest on record. But I got an email from the National Weather Service.  Apparently there was a mistake in their records.  Data from 1905-1907 was missing from the climate database. Once those records were added, it was revealed that 1906 was actually the hottest June on record with average temperature of 85.9°.

We topped 104° twice, June 24 and 26, which was the hottest temperature ever recorded in Houston during the month of June.  Altogether, we had seven consecutive triple digit days, another new record.

Rainfall totaled .27" at Bush IAH, which was -5.08" below normal.  June 2009 was the 4th driest on record.

Galveston was not as warm, although it was still much warmer than normal. The average temperature at Scholes Airport was 84.3° which ties with June 2005 for the 5th warmest on record. The hottest day on the island was also June 24, but the temperature was ten degrees cooler in Galveston than it was in Houston.

Only .32" of rain fell in Galveston last month. That's -3.72" below normal. June 2009 was the ninth driest on record.

Historically, when the summer starts off warm it usually stays warm. That doesn't mean we won't have some cool-ish days. But you should expect temperatures to average warmer than normal in July and August as well.

Everything you wanted to know about 100° heat in Houston, but were too afraid to ask

The numbers guy in our weather center is meteorologist Travis Herzog. He loves digging through climate data and coming up with little known facts. 

Here's what he's uncovered about 100° temperatures in Houston:

Hottest ever: 109° on September 4, 2000

Hottest ever in June:  104° on June 24 and 26, 2009 (Previous record: 103° on June 18, 1918 and June 30, 1980)

Most 100° days in a single year: 32 days in 1980

Earliest date to hit 100°: June 10, 1902

Years temperature has hit 100° during the month of June:

• 1902    10 times
• 1906     4 times
• 1907     1 time
• 1911     2 times
• 1918     1 time
• 1930     2 times
• 1934     2 times
• 1978     1 time
• 1980     8 times
• 1990     1 time
• 1998     2 times
• 2006     1 time
• 2009     4 times  (as of June 26)

First 100° day every year this decade:

• Year     Date     Temp

• 2009     6/23        101*
• 2008     7/14        100
• 2007     8/12        102
• 2006     6/13        100
• 2005      7/1         100
• 2004      8/3         100
• 2003      8/7         104
• 2002      8/3         100
• 2001      8/5         101
• 2000     7/12         100

*The temperature at Bush Intercontinenal hit 101° Tuesday afternoon, a new record high for the day and the first triple digit day for the year 2009.

Drought conditions return to southeast Texas

Only a trace of rain has fallen at Bush Intercontinenal Airport this month. And June is usually the wettest month of the year for us.

We started the year with drought conditions, then excessive rainfall in April brought us back to normal.  Only a third of an inch or rain fell at the airport in May. The last widespread heavy rain fell on April 27 and 28 and that was almost six weeks ago!

The latest survey of soil moisture across the state shows drought conditions are starting to creep back into the area. The map to the left shows dry conditions now cover Fort Bend, Brazoria and most of Galveston county again. Matagorda, Wharton and southern Colorado County didn't get the heavy rain in April and it's still dry in these areas.

We still don't have any soaking showers in the forecast for the next several days. And the long range FutureTrack computer guidance suggests the hot, dry weather will hold for at least another two weeks.

If we hadn't saved the ozone layer

In 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol Treaty which called for the elimination of ozone-depleting chemicals.  Chlorofluorocarbons, of CFCs, were used in air conditioners, refrigerators, even cans of common hairspray were filled with the noxious chemical. 

A team of NASA scientists ran some calculations to estimate what would have happened to the ozone layer if we had not banned CFCs.  Their research predicted the ozone layer would have been much thinner over the U.S. by now. In the image to the right, the shades of blueish green indicate a dangerously thin ozone layer.

By the year 2040, the ozone "hole" would have covered the whole world.

Once released into the air, CFCs eventually ascend into the stratosphere where they destroy the high-altitude ozone layer. Ozone near the ground is caused by pollution; it's unnatural and unhealthly. But in the stratosphere, ozone filters out harmful UV rays from the sun. Without it, skin cancer would have been epidemic.

Global warming gloom-and-doom predictions keep changing

If you listen to enough health reports on TV and radio, eventually you start to realize that research often contradicts itself.  One day medical researchers tell you chocolate is bad for you and two weeks later another group says it's good for you.

That's starting to happen with stories about global warming.

In early February 2009, geophysicists from Oregon State and the University of Toronto warned that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted, the worlds' oceans would rise, completely flooding some major coastal cities. The report, published in the February 6 issue of Science, stated the water would rise 21' in Washington, D.C.

Then just last week, another report was published in Science about the melting of the Ice Sheet. Only this time scientists working at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Colorado stated that water levels would only rise about 11' if the all of the ice melted.  They more or less said early calculations were wrong.

But what if this new study is wrong?

Not only do we have scientists arguing about whether or not the planet is warming and whether or not humans are the cause, now they're arguing about what might happen if the planet gets warmer.