As Texas weather gets increasingly extreme, each year feels like North Texans have just survived record-breaking events. But how did this year’s heat, rain, tornados and drought stack up to previous years?
Here is a look back at some of the most notable weather trends from 2024.
Tornadoes
Almost all of North Texas’s tornado activity in 2024 happened over Memorial Day weekend.
Early on Saturday, May 25, three different tornadoes were observed in Collin and Hunt counties, according to data from the National Weather Service’s Fort Worth office. One tornado touched down and was on the ground for over 8 miles and was classified as EF-1, which means wind gusts were between 86 to 110 miles per hour.
In the same hour, an EF-3 tornado, with gusts of 136 to 165 mph, was observed. Its path was only 0.75 miles in length, according to the weather service.
Late in the evening on the same day, a tornado that killed seven and injured about 100 crossed over Montague, Cooke and Denton counties. Its path was about 47 miles long and led to a disaster declaration by Gov. Greg Abbott for the affected counties.
An EF-1 tornado was also observed in Denton County that night with a path about a mile-and-a-half long.
2024’s singular spell of heavy tornado activity is relatively common compared to recent years, according to weather service data. Both 2019 and 2022 were exceptions, with multiple spells of tornado activity across the seasons.
Rain and Drought
The weather service’s official D-FW rain totals are based on precipitation collected at DFW International Airport. Those figures show the area already hit the annual average rainfall, of about 35 inches, in the first 11 months of the year.
But it hasn’t been distributed evenly. Nearly 20 inches of that total fell in March, April or May, and no month has topped three inches of rainfall since July. Data for December is not yet available.
The late spring months have been consistently rainier over the last five years, according to the weather service data, but there have been outliers. Last October saw almost 10 inches of rain, compared to less than half an inch this year.
2024’s fall was particularly light on precipitation. The longest period of the year with no rain was Sept. 26 to Oct. 28, according to Monique Sellers, a meteorologist with the weather service. This 33-day period is tied for the eighth-longest rain-free period in D-FW’s recorded history.
Extreme Heat
The hottest day of the year at DFW Airport was Aug. 19, which hit 107 degrees.
While this summer certainly wasn’t mild, it did see significantly fewer 100-degree days than in 2022 or 2023. During those years, D-FW residents experienced 47 and 55 100-degree days respectively, compared to this year’s 23 days so far.
It’s also been getting hotter earlier in recent years, according to weather service data. This year and last both saw their first instance of 90 degree heat in late February, a marker that hadn’t been hit in that month for the 20 previous years.