As we ready to move into San Antonio’s summer months, it’s a question on everyone’s mind: Will the 210 see another brutally hot summer?
Exceptionally hot is becoming the new normal for San Antonio. The city experienced 75 triple-digit days last year, beating out the 59 it saw in 2022 to make 2023 the city’s hottest since meteorological record-keeping began in the late 1800s.
Unfortunately, San Antonio is likely to see above-average temperatures for a third summer in a row, despite the above-average rainfall the city has experienced so far this spring, according to the latest outlooks by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.
“For April through June, above-average temperatures are likely to persist across much of the U.S.,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad.
Even with improved drought conditions since this time last year, San Antonio is unlikely to get out of drought as we head into the year’s hottest months, said Eric Platt, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service who is stationed in New Braunfels at the Austin/San Antonio office.
“Currently, all — pretty much most — of Bexar County is in what’s categorized as a moderate drought,” he said. “Then as you get up into the northwest part of the county, the drought level kicks up a notch to severe drought.”
April of last year had most of San Antonio in exceptional drought, although parts of it were in the slightly less-dry category of extreme drought — both of which supersede severe drought.
“Precipitation tends to peak around this time frame in the spring; May is one of our most busy months as far as severe weather,” Platt said. “Generally, we do tend to dry out in the summer.”
Record-breaking heat
An updated climate report by Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon funded by the bipartisan policy-focused nonprofit Texas 2036 shows the expected average temperature across Texas in 2036 will be about 3 degrees warmer than the average over the last half-century.
The “average Texas temperatures in 2036 should be expected to be about 1.8 °F warmer than the 1991-2020 average and 3.0 °F warmer than the 1950-1999 average,” the report states. “This would make a typical year around 2036 warmer than all but the absolute warmest year experienced in Texas during 1895-2020.”
The report warns that even conservative estimates would make a typical year around 2036 warmer than all but the five warmest years on record so far.
“The projected changes in average temperature imply changes in unusually high or low temperatures as well,” the report notes. “The typical number of triple-digit days by 2036 is projected to be substantially larger, about 40% larger than typical values so far in the 21st Century.”
Texans should also expect increased drought severity, a significant increase in urban flooding, more intense hurricanes and larger storm surges over the next three decades, according to the report.
Changes to aquifer levels
Following the rainfall last week, the Edwards Aquifer J-17 monitoring well was up to 638.79 feet above sea level as of Thursday morning. That’s still well below the 650 feet threshold the San Antonio Water System uses to institute Stage 2 watering restrictions, and it’s about on par with the 637.7 feet above sea level the monitoring well was at this time last year.
The Edwards Aquifer is a karst aquifer, which supplies water to over 2 million people in Central Texas, including San Antonio. Even as SAWS has diversified its water sources portfolio over the past two decades, the Edwards Aquifer still supplies roughly half the drinking water distributed by the municipal utility.
It is also about 27.61 feet below the well’s April average of 666.4 feet, according to the Edwards Aquifer Authority, the entity responsible for managing how much water is allowed to be pumped out of the aquifer for the benefit of wildlife living in aquifer-fed springs or the aquifer itself.
Even so, the Alamo City has seen roughly 3 more inches of rain this year than it normally does by this time. As of Thursday, San Antonio recorded roughly 9.96 inches of rain since Jan. 1, Platt said, whereas the annual average by mid-April for our city is 6.75 inches.
At its highest point for the year thus far, the J-17 monitoring well reached 647.73 feet in early February. At the end of last August, the well was recording around 625.71 feet — its lowest point of the year.
San Antonio can expect to see “near normal” levels of rainfall this summer, according to the Climate Prediction Center, which for our city means equal chances of above normal or below normal, Platt said. That’s because San Antonio is situated between a semi-arid area to the west and a much wetter, more humid area to the east. Such a location allows for large variations in monthly and annual precipitation amounts.
For the past few years, the U.S. has been in the La Niña weather pattern, which typically brings warmer temperatures but less rain to the southern United States. El Niño, La Niña’s counterpart, moved into the area around late fall. That brings with it a typically cooler, wetter winter for the southern U.S. Currently, the U.S. is between the two patterns in what’s known as a neutral period.
“It looks like the transition from out of El Niño, with La Niña kicking in probably about late summer, is probably one of the reasons” we will see a summer with above average temperatures, Platt said.
