AUSTIN (KXAN) — Despite fewer triple digit days this summer, we’re still in the middle of one of the top-ten hottest starts to summer on record in Austin.
Our nighttime lows are running the hottest on record in Austin area history.
Of course, our warming climate bears the majority of the responsibility for our warming temperatures here in Central Texas and beyond.
On Thursday, the Climate Prediction Center released their preliminary outlook for August temperatures and precipitation and it paints a mixed picture for Central Texas.
August Outlook
This year the August forecast favors a hotter-than-normal month, not just for Central Texas, but for almost the entire lower 48 states. Typically, August is our hottest month of the year anyway, so hotter than that is the opposite of what you wanted to hear.
The best news about the forecast for next month is the rainfall forecast, which is looking “near-normal” for the Hill Country to “wetter than normal” for the Austin Metro and our eastern counties.
What’s ‘normal’ in August in Austin?
Typically, the hottest days of the year come in August with normal highs at the beginning of the month near 99º with lows in the mid 70s. By the end of the month, our average high drops into the mid 90s. It’s typically a wetter month than July with a little less than 3″ of rain.
How was last August?
August 2023 was the 2nd hottest August on record in Austin area history with an average temperature of 91.1º. The hottest August in Austin area history was in 2011 with an average temperature of 91.7º.