As of Friday, San Antonio has only seen 12 days break the 100-degree mark so far this year — however, as we head into what is typically San Antonio’s hottest month of the year, that will likely change soon.
While 2024 has been off to a cooler and wetter start for San Antonio compared to 2023 — San Antonio’s hottest year since meteorological record-keeping began — the Alamo City is still expected to see a warmer-than-usual autumn this year, with the Climate Prediction Center estimating above-average temperatures for all of Texas through the end of October.
That’s likely to start this week, as a heatwave gets ready to move through the area, said National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Fogarty.
Fogarty said August is typically San Antonio’s hottest month of the year, but he noted we did have a particularly warm June this year already.
“June was hot,” Fogarty said. “It was about 4 degrees above normal,” he added noting normal is an average of about 82.6 degrees.
San Antonio saw a record-breaking 75 triple-digit days in 2023, made worse by the area’s extreme drought conditions. By this time last year, San Antonio had experienced roughly 35 triple-digit days, with August seeing an additional 29 triple-digit days in 2023, followed by another 11 last September.
However, with slightly above-average rainfall so far this year at 19 inches (that’s roughly an inch higher than we typically see by this time of year, Fogarty said) the city has seen a slightly cooler July, only experiencing three triple-digit days this year.
Right now, the Climate Prediction Center is estimating near-normal rainfall averages for the fall across Texas, which means the area could be out of official drought conditions soon, Fogarty noted.
Overall, climate change is still wreaking havoc on average global temperatures despite the small respite San Antonio has seen this year. July 22 was the hottest day on record for planet Earth, according to a NASA analysis of global daily temperature data. July 21 and 23 of this year also exceeded the previous daily record, set in July 2023, the NASA analysis found.
These record-breaking temperatures are part of a long-term warming trend driven by human activities, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases, NASA states on its website.
“As part of its mission to expand our understanding of Earth, NASA collects critical long-term observations of our changing planet,” the organization notes.