All seemed normal across Texas, with a warm Christmas – New Year’s Eve to close out 2024 in balmy southern style.  And then, came a cold and increasingly bitter January 2025.  The polar vortex had dislodged southward across Canada, sending streams of arctic air southward across the Great Plains and eventually Texas.  Surprising Colorado-like snowfalls coated areas west of Fort Worth, and then Houston on January 21st of this year; a welcome deviation from the usual tropical floods and damaging winds that can visit the region, even in winter.  The month ended chilly, but warmer as high pressure began to build over Mexico.  In early February this high pressure took on new and unforeseen proportions, intensifying and building northward until the ridge blanketed the entire southern U.S.

Texas sat amidst this building heat wave, daily high temperatures reaching 80 + by February 1st over deep south Texas, the heat spreading northward to encompass the entire state by February 3rd.  This record-breaking heat lasted through February 9th; an entire week that resembled mid-May rather than early February across much of the state, and  Louisiana as well.

The heat has subsided now, with below normal temperatures expected across much of Texas during the later portions of this month.  But, the rising sun will continue to cast its shadow, with more record breaking heat to be expected this Spring, a precursor to the brutally hot summer of 2025 that awaits the Lone Star State.