Texas is known for wild weather, but the diversity, intensity, and frequency of severe weather across the state has been remarkable. We have seen every mode of severe weather (hail, wind, tornadoes, and extreme precipitation) and many regions experienced multiple rounds of severe weather on successive days. The economic losses have been significant and tragically the storms have led to several dozen deaths.
The culprit for all of this wild weather is an extremely warm Gulf of Mexico, which fuels evaporation and the kind of warm humid air that drives the strongest thunderstorms. A secondary factor was the jet stream, which was active in the region providing upper level support for strong to severe thunderstorms.
The implications of all of this weather are important.
Damage to the electrical grid has caused power outages ranging from minutes to weeks. We still as a state had not had a good faith discussion about tackling our grid stability issues. Damage to the grid this month from severe weather is a poorly-timed setback, going into the hottest part of the year.
Storm damage to houses, buildings, and vehicles factor into the growing problem of property insurers struggling to maintain profitability in the face of increasing frequency of natural disasters generating insured losses.
The biggest question on everyone’s mind is whether this is all a result of climate change. May is a rainy season and a severe storm season for most of the state, so it’s not unusual to see severe thunderstorms this time of year. The office of the state climatologist reports that because of their small spatial and temporal scales and incomplete historical record, it is not possible to identify a trend in the frequency or intensity of thunderstorms caused by climate change. The report says that the best way to estimate changing frequency or intensity of thunderstorms in a warming climate is to took at changes in the incidence of conditions which promote the development of severe thunderstorms.
But a recent update of the report reflects the addition of recent data to the dataset, which does reveal a change in the incidence of some climate hazards like extreme heat and precipitation, along with evaporation: “Updates from the previous version of the report rely on two and a half additional years of data and on new science. The hot summers of 2022 and 2023 have enhanced the observed upward trend in 100-degree days. Recent research has led to increases in the estimated changes in extreme precipitation and in evaporation rates from lakes and reservoirs. In addition, new material has been added on changes in the growing season and changes in wildfire risk across Texas.”
Temperature records are more comprehensive in both spatial and temporal coverage and we can discern a climate signature on the ways climate change affects temperatures in Texas. The extreme heat Texas endured over Memorial Day Weekend was five times more likely to occur in a warming climate.
Rapid warming in the Gulf of Mexico this month, which contributed both the availability of precipitable water and to the water vapor needed for severe storm development and intensity, is in part an impact of climate change. The very warm Gulf of Mexico is a worrying development for a storm-weary state going into what is already projected to be an above average hurricane season.
The kinds of weather hazards we saw this week are growing more likely each day in a warming climate. Texas must prepare for extreme heat and precipitation and understand the changing risks of severe weather like hail and tornadoes as the climate warms.
This post is the first in a series of posts going into more detail about the unusual run of weather and climate stories Texas has seen this spring. Be sure to check out the other articles in the series.