The Temperature Is the Least Surprising Part of the Texas Heat Wave
People aren’t prepared for climate impacts, says Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric sciences professor at Texas A&M University.
Temperature in Continental US on May 9.
Source: National Weather Service/NOAA
Texas suffered extremely high temperatures in the last week, reaching 112° Fahrenheit (44.4° Celsius) in Rio Grande Village, near the Mexican border. Triple digit-readings were still rolling through the state's southern and mid-western band yesterday, even as the heat began to spread north through the Great Plains. Mexico faced even worse conditions, including 114°F in the northeastern city of Monclova.
If there's one thing climate science is confident about, it's that today's unprecedented heat is tomorrow's normal. A Texas climate report released in October warned that the transformation of unprecedented temperatures into normal ones is a troubling but safe bet. Current heating rates in Texas "would make a typical year around 2036 warmer than all but the absolute warmest year experienced in Texas during 1895-2020," the authors concluded.