Texas Climate Report: September 2004

The state of Texas experienced an abnormal September in many ways. The month began with a continuation of cool, dry weather from August. The Gulf Coast experienced some heavy showers with Galveston recording 1.89" of rain on the 3rd and Corpus Christi receiving 3.89" on the 4th. A cold front moved across the state beginning on the 5th, and high temperatures dropped to the 80s across the state. A high pressure system then settled over the state, and the weather was warm and dry for over a week. A few scattered showers appeared during the end of the second week of September, but little else occurred until the third week of the month. Showers began to soak most of west Texas beginning on the 20th due to a low pressure system in the southwest United States. A frontal system that began to move over the state on the 22nd became stationary and dropped copious amounts of rain on several stations. From the 22nd-28th, rainfall totals topped 2 inches: Amarillo (3.28"), Del Rio (3.04"), Lubbock (4.37"), Midland (4.32"), and San Angelo (2.01"). There were also some reports of hail during these days including 2.50" in Tom Green County on the 23rd.

Also during this time, an event with little precedence occurred – the remnants of Hurricane Ivan curved back into the Gulf, and it intensified back to tropical storm strength. The storm hit land again just east of Port Arthur, and moved parallel to the coast bringing over an inch of rain to Port Arthur and Corpus Christi. For the month, the western half of the state was wet and cool while the eastern half received little rainfall and hot temperatures. Five stations had less than an inch of rain for the entire month:  Abilene, El Paso, Waco, Wichita Falls, and College Station (2nd driest September ever).

Monthly Summary for Selected Cities

Monthly Extremes

New Monthly Records

Climatic Averages for October