How HOT is it in southeast Texas?? (Houston, San Antonio: live in, pool)

[cvap]

I need to know, does the sun shine in Texas and how hot does it get in the summer?? I am up in the mountains of Massachusetts. It is June 24th and we are still wearing jeans and sweatshirts. We have not had 2 sunny days in a row in so long, I can't even remember. We had to cook a chicken in the oven to warm up the house. We have been looking at South Texas to end up in but everyone says the summers are wicked hot. But at least ya all got sunshine!!

[teatime]

I moved from New Hampshire to South Texas. Your current experience with very few sunny, hot days is the same in reverse in South Texas. Very few non-hot, non-humid days there. I never thought it was possible for sunshine and heat every single day to get depressing but, remarkably, it does! I longed for rain and respite from the constant sun and heat.

I live in West Texas now and I love having seasons again. It gets blazing hot everywhere in Texas in the summer but it's nice to know it WILL get chilly in the winter and even snow a little bit.

Don't dismiss the heat -- it can really get to you!

[tstone]

We had temps near 100 just about every day last week in the Houston area. It's cooled down now into the lower 90s which is normal. It'll get to the mid-upper 90s regularly later this summer and a several days in the low 100s are not unheard of. It stays in the 90s for about 5 months of the year. If you're close to the coast such as Galveston or Port Arthur you'll be 5-10 degrees cooler in the daytime than the rest of area.

On the flip side, it's a cold night if it gets below 40 in S and SE Texas.

[cvap]

Hey! Well Teatime, you know about the depressing Northeast!! We do not get many full sunny days here and the past few weeks have been awful. The weather here just makes one feel blah! We had a LOT of snow this winter. Just dreaming of sunny days and a warm/hot place is a nice thing to do. Thanks also tstone. Sounds great to me!!

[garxhap]

I just came inside from a very pleasant time weeding in my garden. It was 7pm when I went out and 8pm when I came back in. The wind was blowing about 10 miles per hour, fairly typical for that time of day in the summer.

The thing is, unless someone is in poor health, tolerating heat and humidity is more a state of mind than anything. I saw a neighbor this week go out and mow his lawn at midday with the sun shining, and he didn't seem to mind the heat at all. Part of the problem is that the humidity will generally make you sweat, especially if you are in the sun. If you hate sweating, you will hate being outdoors in Houston during the hottest hours of the day. This will be true generally from late May until the end of September.

To sum up, lots of people don't mind it, lots of people can't stand it.

[bigthirsty]

Its been pretty hot in San Antonio.. Not sure if that is "southeast" Texas or not. We shed sweaters back in February..

[hellpaso]

Originally Posted by bigthirsty

Its been pretty hot in San Antonio.. Not sure if that is "southeast" Texas or not. We shed sweaters back in February..

we never even got to wear sweaters this past winter. i turned on the heat no more than a few hours all winter, and that was for temps in the 60s outside. this year is hotter than last year.

[tstone]

SA is south-central Texas, not south-east. It gets a few degrees hotter but the humidity is lower so it feels the same to me... hot!! SA winters are a bit colder than ours though as it's further away from the Gulf. McAllen & Brownsville are going to have the warmest winters in Texas.

After being here in the Golden Triangle for awhile now I have noticed that it doesn't get as hot here as the rest of Texas. This is more like Louisiana than Texas, really in just about every way.

[BobTex]

I have lived in SE Tx 80% of my life but also spent almost 2 years in Bangor Maine ... so I know what you are speaking of too.

I live about 50-60 miles west of the Louisiana border and about 75 miles inland from the Gulf Coast. I agree with tstone in that places east of I-45 are several degrees cooler in the summer than the rest of Texas and generally warmer in winter too. The flip side is humidity. During summer morning humidity is generally 95-100% but burns off by evening to around 60%. You sweat in the mornings without evaporation ... sticky is a good description. Evenings are better ... still hot though. Flip side is most "winter days will at least get into the 50's and the 70's happen. Nights in the winter can be cool. It can get to the teens but rarely does (where I'm at). A cold night here may get to 25*-26* for a couple of hours and then the day will get into the high 40's to 50's.

Right now I'm missing that Northeast summer. Spending lotsa time in the pool and going down to the creek! I'll be in Maine though as I evacuate the heat in latre July for a coupla weeks. Going to NB, Canada too for 2 weeks.


Summer in Texas is like Winter where you are from in a way ... you gotta develop tactics and adjust your lifestyle to cope! (It was 68* here at daylight this AM). The measurement for hot is if its 80* by 8:00AM, if so the day will be "bad".

[tstone]

When you say east of I-45, it's really east of the entire Houston metro. Somewhere between Anahuac and Winnie it seems there's some type of convection zone... a big change of climate where it gets very moist & misty, even on a sunny afternoon. For 2 months I've been doing the drive from SE Houston to Port Arthur every day and notice this:

In the morning I can drive with the vents on, no AC and when I hit the 'zone' my interior windows fog up and I have to use the AC all the way to the job. In the afternoon I can drive with the windows rolled down a little and be comfortable. It's in the mid-80s or so outside, and when I hit the zone my windshield gets misted on, and it instantly gets about 7-8 degrees hotter. Up go the windows, on goes the AC all the way back home. That 'zone' I'm talking about gets some extremely heavy rainfall, too.

All of that is probably why they grow rice out there.