Volume 17 Number 2.3 FEBRUARY 2004
The month of February was characterized by cold and
wet weather. Half of the first order
stations received over 10 days of measurable precipitation, and only Brownsville, Del Rio, El Paso, and San Antonio had below normal
precipitation for the month. The month
began with a cold front that passed over the state on the 4th and 5th. This brought rain to most of south and east Texas as well as near-freezing
temperatures to most of the state. The
next front came through on the 9th-11th and soaked most
of south and east Texas. Houston, Galveston, Shreveport, and Austin received at least 2” of
rain, and College Station and Port Arthur collected over 3”.
Following this front, an arctic air mass blanketed
the Panhandle and West Texas regions on the 12th.
Over the next week, temperatures across the state dropped into the 10s,
20s and 30s, and northern Texas received heavy
snowfall. Lubbock had 1.2”, Waco – 2.3”, Amarillo – 2.6”, and Dallas received 3” of snow. After the arctic air moved out, a warm front
brought temperatures into the 60s and 70s for most of the state. A series of cold fronts helped to keep things
near their February normals until the next storm system hit on the 23rd. A low pressure system passing through the
state on the 23rd – 25th brought even more precipitation
to most of the state. College Station, Houston, Lubbock, and Wichita Falls received at least 0.5”; Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas/Fort Worth, Galveston, San Angelo, Victoria, and Waco all recorded at least 1”; Shreveport and Abilene accumulated at least 1.5”
of rain for these days.
The tail end of a cold front brought scattered
rainfall across the central and northern parts of the state on the 28th
and 29th, but temperatures remained at or above their February
normals for the final week.
Michael
Hammer (Undergraduate Assistant)
FEBRUARY 2004
* Based
on 1971-2000 normals
* Complete temperature data
were unavailable. Temperatures are
rounded to the nearest whole degree.
* HDD - Heating degree-day: Refer to the Monthly Average chart for a
definition
T = Trace (<0.005")
* CDD - Cooling degree-day: Refer to the Monthly Average chart for a
definition M: Information not available.
CLIMATIC AVERAGES FOR MARCH
Records are at the current site, other records may have occurred at previous
sites.
*CDD - Cooling degree-day: The difference between the mean individual
daily temperature and 65°F, with one
CDD resulting
for each degree above the standard 65°F during one day.
*HDD - Heating degree-day: The difference between the mean individual
daily temperature and 65°F, with one
HDD resulting
for each degree below the standard 65°F during one day.
Agricultural Weather Highlights
http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/index.html
Past Weather Events in March
March 23, 1909:
Tornado. Slidell, Wise County; 11 killed, 10 injured;
damage $30,000.
March 30, 1933:
Tornado. Angelina, Nacogdoches and San Augustine Counties;
10 killed, 56 injured; damage $200,000.
March 13, 1953: Tornado. Jud and O'Brien, Haskell County; and Knox City, Knox County; 17 killed, 25 injured;
damage $600,000.
March-May, 1998: According to the Climate Prediction Center, this three-month period
ranks as the seventh driest for a region including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. May 1998 has been ranked as both the warmest
and the driest May that this region has ever seen.
March 28, 2000: A supercell over Fort Worth produced an F3 tornado which injured 80 people and
caused significant damage. Flooding
claimed the lives of two people.
Dr.
John Nielsen-Gammon (State Climatologist)
Kelsey
Curtiss (Graduate Assistant)
Michael
Hammer (Undergraduate Assistant)
