AUSTIN (KXAN) — It was a year of extremes: 2023 brought Austin’s hottest summer on record and also the worst ice storm on record. More than 4,000 acres were burned by wildfires across Central Texas, and the city experienced its costliest hailstorm ever.
Here’s a look back at some of the biggest weather stories of the year.
Worst ice storm on record
At 6:35 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 31, Meteorologist Kristen Currie told KXAN viewers, “This Winter Storm Warning has expanded and extended. The icing threat is worsening. It’s only going to get worse through the day.”
The storm she was referring to would become Austin’s worst ice storm in recorded history.
Camp Mabry, Austin’s official weather reporting site, received 0.69″ of ice, a new record. That was the second-highest total in all of Central Texas, behind a report of 0.80″ near Llano. Chief Meteorologist David Yeomans called the totals “mind-blowing.” The impact was severe.
“I cannot recall an ice event like this, within the city limits of Austin, in which so much ice accumulated on power lines. Not even one,” KXAN Meteorologist Jim Spencer said. “We’ve had some ice storms, yes. We’ve got some bad ones, maybe worse ones toward the Hill Country. But in the city, I do not recall an ice storm since I started back in 1990 that put this much ice across such a wide area of Austin.”
The weight of ice caused tree limbs to fall across the area. The Texas A&M Forest Service estimated the storm damaged 10.5 million trees in the Austin area, or 30% of the city’s tree canopy.
The city went on to collect more than 170,000 tons of debris as Austinities cleaned up the mess, enough to fill Q2 Stadium more than four times over.
As tree limbs fell, power lines came down with them, plunging thousands into the dark — and the cold. At the peak at 3:49 p.m. on Feb. 1, a total of 173,879 Austin Energy customers were without power, approximately 31.6% of all the utility’s customers. Some of them waited 10 days for power to return.
In total, Austin Energy data showed almost 375,000 customer outages were reported between Feb. 1 and Feb. 12.
The city’s response to the ice storm came under intense scrutiny, eventually leading to the firing of City Manager Spencer Cronk on Feb. 15. Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent later retired at the end of March. An after-action report released in October detailed several improvements needed in future emergency response efforts, from communications to shelter management.
“The magnitude of damage caused communication barriers and breakdowns immediately after the storm,” the report read. “For example, due to the complexity and volume of the outages, Austin Energy and other utility providers could not provide its customers with accurate estimated times of restoration.”
Hottest year on record
Anyone hoping that an ice storm meant the rest of the year would be colder than usual was in for a rude awakening. In fact, 2023 was Austin’s hottest year on record, with weather data available back to the 1890s.
The average temperature this year, with every daily high and low taken into account, was 72.2°, beating the previous record of 72.1°, set in 2017.
The summer was particularly hot. In fact, it was the hottest meteorological summer — defined as the months of June, July and August — ever recorded at Austin’s airport.
In those three months, the average temperature at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was 87.1°, beating the previous record of 86.7°, set in 1954. Camp Mabry’s average summer temperature was 89.4°, just 0.1° shy of tying the record there, set in 2011.
The abnormally hot summer can be seen in the chart below, which shows how high temperatures each day compared to average. Days in red were hotter than normal.
July was the hottest on record at Camp Mabry. August and September were both the second-hottest, and June was the sixth-hottest.
Austin hit the triple digits for the first time on June 9, about a month ahead of normal, and went on to do it 80 days in total. Only 2011 saw more days at or above 100°.
Austin set a new record for most triple-digit days in a row. Every day between July 8 and Aug. 21 hit at least 100° — 45 days in total. The previous record was 27 days, set in 2011.
The airport hit 100° for 44 days in a row, between July 29 and Sept. 10, almost doubling the previous record of 23, set in both 1951 and 1998.
Extreme heat was the name of the game this year. Camp Mabry reached 110° on Aug. 17 — tying as the third-hottest temperature ever recorded in the city. The heat index reached a staggering 118° on June 21, a new all-time record.
And we set not one but two new records for most days at or above 105° in a row, first between July 10 and 20, and again between Aug. 4 and 15. The previous record of nine days had stood for 100 years.
Summer of wildfires
In addition to being incredibly hot, the summer of 2023 was also incredibly dry. July and August combined saw just 0.15″ of rain at Camp Mabry, more than 4.5″ below average.
The hot, dry conditions contributed to several wildfires across Central Texas. Almost 60 fires sparked throughout the 15-county KXAN viewing area this year, burning more than 4,000 acres in total.
Photo of the Moore Peak Fire in Llano County as seen from Kingsland. (Courtesy Max Galyen)
Airtanker drops retardant on Powder Keg Pine fire in Bastrop County on Aug. 1, 2023 (Courtesy Shaley Klumker)
Burned land from the Oak Grove Fire (KXAN Photo).
A helicopter drops water on the Parmer Lane Fire in Cedar Park on Aug. 8, 2023. (Courtesy Andrew Binkard)
The Ruby Ranch Fire burns near Buda on July 18, 2023. (KXAN Viewer Photo)
The Oak Grove Fire in Hays County. (Courtesy: Texas A&M Forest Service)
The largest fire was the Moore Peak Fire, which burned 707 acres in Llano County in mid July. The Texas A&M Forest Service said the fire was likely started by someone operating machinery.
A Hays County home was destroyed in the Oak Grove Fire in August, which burned 365 acres near San Marcos. Tosca Cesaretti told KXAN’s Kelly Wiley her land was destroyed, but thankfully her house was saved.
“When we left yesterday, fleeing for our lives, I was so numb, feeling like I had lost everything,” Cesaretti said. “When we were leaving, we felt the heat. There were embers falling.”
On Aug. 8, a 37-acre wildfire sparked in Cedar Park. The Parmer Lane Fire destroyed an apartment building and damaged two others. Two people were treated for minor injuries.
Single mom Makayla Cray walked KXAN’s Jala Washington through the scary moments trying to evacuate with her three-week-old baby.
“I had probably two minutes to get her and my cat out from underneath the bed, with the carrier, and get out the door,” Cray said. “And by time made it to my car, I could already see the flames.”
Amazon delivery driver Mateo Orosco said he almost got trapped in a neighborhood next to where the fire started. He urged neighbors to evacuate as burning embers sparked new fires on the front lawns of homes.
“There was so much smoke,” Orosco said. “I was honking through the neighborhood trying to let everybody know.”
Flash flooding catches drivers off guard
When it did rain in 2023, it came too much at once. On April 20, more than 4″ of rain fell in north Austin in just one hour. Storm totals of 5.61″ were recorded near Wells Branch, while 4.52″ was measured in Jollyville.
Walnut Creek received 1.52″ of rain in just 15 minutes, causing flash flooding. The creek surged to 23 feet deep, with about a fifth of the flow of Niagara Falls. The Austin Fire Department conducted 10 water rescues, while emergency crews in Pflugerville saved 16 people from cars stuck in rising water.
Around 20-30 cars were stranded at U.S. Highway 183 and Duval Road, as people unknowingly drove into chest-deep water on the service road. Meanwhile, several homes on Mearns Meadow Boulevard were surrounded by floodwater, with water even entering some homes.
“It turned into just a full-blown river, and it was running right through the property,” Ben Haugh, owner of All Nation Restoration told KXAN’s Mercedez Hernandez. “Big trees, other people’s cars from upstream were coming down, cargo trailers, boat trailers. Just stuff that was swept off the banks with no warning.”
By the end of the year, Camp Mabry and the airport both received almost 27″ of rain. At Camp Mabry, the total was more than 9″ below normal.
On the whole, it wasn’t a great year for the Highland Lakes. The water level on Lake Travis dropped to 626.93′ on Oct. 25, the lowest level since March 2015.
Rain in late October provided a small rebound, but the lake closed out the year at 630.92′ — down almost 9′ from the start of the year. For context, Lake Travis ended 2023 only 37.6% full.
Costliest hailstorm in history
Sept. 24 brought the most expensive hailstorm in Austin history. Hail up to softball size pummeled Georgetown, Round Rock and parts of Austin, causing an estimated $600 million in damage in Travis and Williamson counties.
Large hail in Round Rock, Texas, on Sept. 24, 2023 (Courtesy: Kristen Bluntzer)
Hail damage at Round Rock Hyundai on Sept. 24, 2023 (KXAN Photo/Todd Bynum)
Large hail in Georgetown on Sept. 24, 2023 (Courtesy: Laney Gilani)
Round Rock Independent School District sustained damage at some of its campuses, including broken skylights, windows and windshields, dented HVAC equipment, vehicles and buses, leaky roofs and downed tree limbs.
It was a busy year of severe weather across Central Texas. Throughout 2023, a total of 263 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued by the National Weather Service in the KXAN viewing area — more than 2.5 times as many as in 2022.
Gillespie County saw the most Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, with 48, followed by San Saba County with 43. Travis County had 38 warnings issued in 2023.
Caldwell County tornado
Another round of severe weather moved through on Oct. 26. A storm in Caldwell County spawned an EF-0 tornado near Niederwald. The short-lived tornado was only on the ground for less than a minute and had winds up to 65 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
Jennifer Vela told KXAN’s Sarah Al-Shaikh she spotted the twister on her way to work.
“It was scary,” Vela said. “I think by the time I got to work, my hands were still shaking.”
A celestial treat!
On Oct. 14, Central Texans looked to the skies. Not because of rain or storms, but a rare celestial sight: an annular solar eclipse.
An annular eclipse seen from San Antonio on Oct. 14, 2023. (Courtesy Todd Sellars)
An annular eclipse seen from southeast Austin on Oct. 14, 2023. (Courtesy Geoffrey D. McLin)
Eclipse view through binoculars in Austin on Oct. 14, 2023. (Courtesy Kim Yarbrough)
Austin wasn’t in the path of totality, but 88% of sunlight was blocked out, peaking at 11:54 a.m. As it was an annular eclipse, the moon didn’t totally blot out the sun. Instead, a ring of fire appeared around the moon for those in the path of totality.
The main event is coming later in 2024 though. A total solar eclipse will be visible from Austin, and much of Texas, on April 8.
Austin will experience totality for 1 minute, 40.7 seconds. Locations further west will be in the dark for longer. Fredericksburg, for example, will be in totality for 4 minutes, 23.9 seconds.
What else is in store for 2024?
The Climate Prediction Center said the current El Niño was slightly favored to be “historically strong” this winter, giving it about at 54% chance of being one of the five strongest since 1950.
In Central Texas, winter is typically when we see the most predictable impacts from El Niño: usually wetter and cooler weather than normal. The First Warning Weather team found that a strong El Niño pattern this winter could mean less ice, more rain and much-needed drought relief.
In its three-month outlook, the Climate Prediction Center is forecasting equal chances of warmer and cooler weather than average this winter, as well as equal chances of wetter and drier weather than normal.
Three month temperature outlook for January-March, 2024, as of Dec. 21, 2023. (Climate Prediction Center)
Three month precipitation outlook for January-March, 2024, as of Dec. 21, 2023. (Climate Prediction Center)
As for the rest of 2024? We’ll see! But rest assured, Chief Meteorologist David Yeomans and the entire KXAN First Warning Weather team will be right there with you along the way. Happy New Year!
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