Weekly Climate Summary: 10/01/23-10/07/23

Climate in the News:

Last week brought more severe storms to several parts of Texas including North Texas. This area was slammed with golf ball-sized hail, power outages, and flash flooding. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, tens of thousands of people were without power following Wednesday night storms and significant damage from high winds occurred as seen in the photo below. Most notably, two people, including an 8-year-old, were injured at an FC Dallas game when storms hit Toyota Stadium. To read more, visit https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article280144654.html.

Source: Christopher Cook (Twitter: @cooktx)

Weather Synopsis:

Last week’s weather was predominantly driven by an upper-level disturbance that made its way across the Continental United States. Below is a map depicting the heights of the 500 mb pressure level across the country. The difference in heights and how these move and change over time allow us to understand possible causes of the weather we experience at the surface. This particular map is from October 6th at 7:00 pm. On the right side of the image a “U” shape made by several height lines can be seen, outlining the upper level disturbance that resulted in a low pressure system at the surface. This system produced frontal boundaries that impacted our state and brought severe weather over the past week.

Source: Storm Prediction Center

Temperature:

Last week was near normal for our state. The warmest portions had temperatures near 85 degrees Fahrenheit with the highest average recorded at 86.1 degrees in Starr County. The majority of the state had temperatures between 70 and 80 degrees while parts of the Panhandle and Far West Texas fell below 70 degrees. The coolest weekly average was 64.1 degrees in Dallam County. Overall, temperatures were within 3 degrees of the long-term temperature average for this time of year.

Precipitation:

Unlike many of the preceding weeks, most of the state saw rainfall over the past week. Many areas exceeded 2.0” of rain with the largest rainfall total recorded at 10.76” in Bowie County.

Records/Extremes:

• October 3 - Borden County - A high wind report of 83 mph was recorded at a mesonet station near Fluvanna.
• October 4 - Cochran County - A landspout was observed near Whiteface.
• October 4 - Lubbock County - 3.0 inch hail fell outside of Reese Center.