Is there ever actually any weather in Texas?

[Dennis Olson]

I've lived in Texas for 18 months now (geesh, how time flies!) and in that time, with the exception of the time I lived in the Longview area, there's been essentially NO WEATHER IN THIS STATE. Sure, there's been the occasional few days of showers, and even the occasional 3-day front with rain. But about 98% of the time, it's just blistering sun and no clouds, even in winter. Which prompts my question. Is there really any weather in this state? Except for the very occasional hurricanes that hit the coast, that is.


ETA: "Spotty showers" or a "10% chance of rain" make breathless headline news here...

[Millwright]

The last few years, half of deer season was in shorts & t-shirt.

If you are lucky winter falls on a weekend.

[dstraito]

I hear there is an 80% chance of weather today!

[Dobbin]

Mark Twain said it best.

"If you don't like the weather in New England - wait a minute."

No frost here last night. Owner's long range view thermometer outside bottomed out at 38. 41 now. Good! Grazing continues free and easy. But it (frost) is coming...

Dobbin

[TheSearcher]

You moved here in the middle of a significant drought, then we went through a Texas summer, which is merely just hot in the best of years. That would sum up your 18 months right there. Generally speaking, yes we have weather. Do we have Currier and Yve's winters and summers like San Francisco? No, but this has been extreme, even for us. That will change.

[shortstop]

Nope, Texas doesnt really have weather.... super hot or not that hot....

[willowlady]

Currier and Yve's winters and summers like San Francisco?

San Francisco is not the epitome of Currier & Ives Winters......

[Dennis Olson]

That would be Pennsylvania, Maine, or similar states. SF is just dismal overall, summer or winter. Fog much of the time.

[Stardust]

Well, Dennis, it's been pretty quiet the last 18 months; statewide. But one has to consider we are in a drought and there's simply not much that happens under those conditions. And, you are in the part of the state that usually is warm, even in winter.

But, yes, we do have weather here. Once I saw a day where it was 60 degrees with calm winds and sunshine go to 50-60MPH North winds, blinding snow, and wind chills down in the teens. All that happened in a span of about 45 minutes.

Then we do have those pesky tornadoes that form at the drop of a hat. Floods happen when we have rain or the remains of a hurricane decide to park over one area; which doesn't happen often.

Hang around Dennis, when this drought is broken (that will take a flood) you'll see weather. Probably lots more than you want.

[DryCreek]

San Francisco is not the epitome of Currier & Ives Winters......

And that's not fair! They should find some way to tax the productive class in order to fund a study and determine exactly why they're not featured in a C&I winter scene on a nice blue serving platter. Maybe they can even convince them to use "gayer" colors when representing the city too? It's only fair, after all. Who likes dull blue and red dinnerware?

[Captain D]

about 98% of the time, it's just blistering sun and no clouds, even in winter. . "10% chance of rain" make breathless headline news here...

Yes, isn't it great? Now you know why people flock from the northern climes to live in the great Southwest. What I like best is that you can plan a picnic for a year from now and not have to worry whether or not it will rain.

One added feature is that since we don't have "weather" we enjoy lower homeowner's insurance rates.

[O2BNOK]

here's some proof that Texas does indeed, occasionally, have weather.

[Westexian]

Except for the (not the last 2 years) marching of the lines of thunderstorms from ~ Fort Stockton to across the state in April and May, we don't really have weather. We have climate!

[night driver]

Dunno man. When we got there they had JUST finished with a WHOLE WEEK of snow. Almost died when the guy at a Pizza Hut said "Yeah we get snow. After three days it got really old...my tennies were soaked all the time."
Seriously when I told him that it wasn't unusual to have 3 MONTHS of it he about carped....complete with fins.

Of course the boss told us it had been a SERIOUS winter that year....ROFLOL....

[Kathy in FL]

Come over here to Florida and we'll give you all the weather in the world you could want. The seasons are more subtle, it's true, but they deliver enough surprises that they aren't boring. ROFL

[night driver]

Yes, isn't it great? Now you know why people flock from the northern climes to live in the great Southwest. What I like best is that you can plan a picnic for a year from now and not have to worry whether or not it will rain.

Unless you are our canpground owners, and then if you plan a Bluegrass Fest you KNOW it's gonna MONSOON and the Brazos south of Possum Kingdom is gonna flood...they're gonna have to open all 5 gates and well that is a whole lotta water...

[Dennis Olson]

Hell has "climate" too. I'm still trying to figure out which climate is hotter. Tough call....

[Dennis Olson]

Kathy, I can't stand the lovebugs and what they do to your car's paint, as well as clogging EVERYTHING.

[Westexian]

Hell has "climate" too. I'm still trying to figure out which climate is hotter. Tough call....

Well, we are about 20 miles east of Odessa!

Just kidding!!

[sunflowerstation]

and that is why we have so many Texas license plates in the Colorado mountains in the summer time. They're here to cool off

Sunny

[Satanta]

Come over here to Florida and we'll give you all the weather in the world you could want. The seasons are more subtle, it's true, but they deliver enough surprises that they aren't boring. ROFL

Florida has colors not seasons-Green, Brown and Blue.

Green is Spring.

Brown is Summer and Fall.

Blue is when the frelling snow birds with blue hair start flooding the roads.

As was said-Texas has Climates.

I remember, shortly after I moved from Florida back to Texas and was stayig with the family,

One night the mom comes in and says "It's raining and everyone is on the porch-come join us!" So I go out. the dad and mom, aunt and uncle, bro ad his boys and wife. The boys were 2 and 5 IIRC. they were freaked out because they had never seen rain before.

[mbabulldog]

You won't have to worry TOO much about that once you get to Colorado. We do have long spells of sunny weather (for example, we broke some kind of record this summer with 90+ degree days) but its really not bad, unless you're working directly in the sun. the nights and mornings are glorious.

When you getting out here, boss?!

[Satanta]

Well, we are about 20 miles east of Odessa!

Just kidding!!

Really? I always wondered where they stuck hell.

I figured it was further South near Laredo myself.

[TheSearcher]

San Francisco is not the epitome of Currier & Ives Winters......

Right. Perhaps I missed a comma:

"...Currier and Yve's winters, and summers like San Francisco..."

[Palmetto]

Hell has "climate" too. I'm still trying to figure out which climate is hotter. Tough call....

Phil Sheridan, military governor (sic) of Texas and LA after the failed war for Southern Independence, absolutely hated Texas. So much that he only visited Texas once during his appointment.

An Eastern newspaper man asked him why he didn't visit Texas. Sheridan's reply, "IF I owned Texas and Hell, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell."

No fan of the above Yankee occupier, but your statement made me think of that story.

Palmetto

Sources:

19 April 1866, The Independent, pg. 4:

19 December 1884, Chicago Daily Tribune, pg. 9:

[mudlogger]

Hey, westexian, another Midlander here, but I've been gone 27 years, well except for '07 thru '09, when the whole family moved there to help my mother. My daughter married a Stanton boy and loves the sky.

Me? I'm sooo happy to be back in the Virginia mountains. Not mudlogging any more (just haven't changed the name).

[Dennis Olson]

I just finished cutting the grass in front of the house and on the side. That mutant grass I'd spoken of before was already a foot high after the day of rain we had here a week or so ago. I swear it grows 2" a day. And you can't do yard work to speak of except at dawn or after sunset. I was going to cut the grass a couple days ago, but there's been absolutely not a breath of breeze here in the mornings, and the dew has been thick. And by nightfall, I just didn't care. So I cut it wet this morning.

[watchin]

We certainly DO have weather! I can remember one year when we had a snow, & another one (faintly) when there was an ice storm, & just last spring, there was almost a tornado.

However, you may need to come back up to North Texas if you want to see that kind of weather.

[maric]

The heat & the bugs are the main reasons we decided against Texas. I just can't take the hot weather AT ALL.

[Oilpatch Hand]

Kathy, I can't stand the lovebugs and what they do to your car's paint, as well as clogging EVERYTHING.

The state car wash lobby had the lovebugs imported as a economic stimulus measure.

If you want some weather, you could check out Amarillo. Temperatures there can go from scalding hot to freeze yer buns off in an hour.

[Jonas Parker]

Nope, no weather here... and just the way I like it after 20+ years in Michigan!

[Petunia]

Hurricane season still has more than a month to go, so becareful what you wish for. I think Tropical Storm Allison may even have affected the Austin area. Somewhere on the internet, there should be photos of the semi-trucks floating on the interstate in Houston as the result of Allison. So I guess that might be called "weather." And I'm pretty sure anyone who has been through a hurricane and the aftermath clean-up would tell you they experienced some "weather" in Texas. Not to mention the tornadoes. The violent thunderstorms.

Now seasons -- that's a different issue, depending on what part of the state you live in.

[ejagno]

You could be shoveling snow.

[Westexian]

Hey, westexian, another Midlander here, but I've been gone 27 years, well except for '07 thru '09, when the whole family moved there to help my mother. My daughter married a Stanton boy and loves the sky.

Me? I'm sooo happy to be back in the Virginia mountains. Not mudlogging any more (just haven't changed the name).

Mountains would be nice! One day, we'll just need to annex Ruidoso. Heck, when we secede, I bet most of SE NM will want to join us. Good folks in Stanton too. They are more long term natives than the big towns out here.

Midland is nice, but the boom has way too many folks here, and all the roads are death traps.

But complaining about a boom is akin to complaining about getting rain. Just enjoy it while we can!

[Flippper]

Hey Dennis, did you really get the job in Colorado? I think you'll love it there, but you will be shoveling snow again. Denver is a mile high, but is always warmer in winter than it is here and we're at 1,400 feet. If you got the job, congrats! I hadn't heard.

Too bad you aren't a snowbird, just go south for the winter and keep north for 'the weather' in summer.

[Dennis Olson]

Not a sound on the Colorado gig. I'm having a steam cleaning company come out to do the carpets in the RV today. That's the last major cleaning item before I can go through the food stores, toss the old stuff and reprovision. That will complete the interior work, leaving just the underfloor storage areas. I have to go through about half of them and clean and reorg.

[Lee Penn]

I lived in Midland Texas for about 10 years, till 1965.

It had seasons ...

Dust storms in March
Severe thunderstorms, hail, and tornado watches in April and May
Hot and dry from June through August
More thunderstorms in September
First freeze in November
Occasional "blue northers", maybe with an inch or two of snow, sometime in December-February

Is the pattern different now - aside from the drought?

Lee

[Kathy in FL]

Kathy, I can't stand the lovebugs and what they do to your car's paint, as well as clogging EVERYTHING.

ROFL!! Those things aren't natural that's for sure. Just one of man's many mess ups in the bio lab. Actually the love bugs are practically non-existent here in Tampa this year but north Florida, according to my parents anyway, have had their share and ours too.

[Desert Painter]

Sounds like the opposite of Wyoming... Nine months of Winter, and three months of 'lousy sledding."

[Dafodil]

I'm in Orlando this week. I can attest the love bugs are still at it!