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When looking at climate charts in Oklahoma and Texas, spring and autumns are usually stormy with lots of severe weather. While the summers dry out and gets very hot and humid.
Greater north-south temperature difference fuel storms more in autumn and especially spring. Gulf of Mexico moisture seems to create July/August rain east of Texas; Texas seems to be under a frequent high pressure ridge more than the rest of the south
Greater north-south temperature difference fuel storms more in autumn and especially spring. Gulf of Mexico moisture seems to create July/August rain east of Texas; Texas seems to be under a frequent high pressure ridge more than the rest of the south
Outside of summer, the rainfall patterns in inland TX and OK are similar to that of the rest of the inland South; lots of severe storms during the transition season. The difference during summer comes from the high pressure systems that come over TX/OK more than they do in places eastward for this 30 year record period; however, the opposite placements can occur (see Summer 2007 for an example).
But not all of Texas is dry like that during the summer. West Texas (areas like El Paso) is influenced by the desert monsoon that affects the Desert SW (which is caused by the high-pressure that dries out the Great Plains during summer), allowing for a summer peak in precipitation. The Gulf Coast of Texas also has a summer peak in precipitation; the southern Texas Gulf Coast (Brownsville, Corpus Christi, etc) has a distinct late-summer/early fall peak similar to that of tropical Mexico, and the northern Texas Gulf (Houston, Beaumont, Port Arthur, etc) has similar rainfall patterns to southern Louisiana (Lake Charles, New Orleans etc).
Is Central Texas influenced by both the monsoon and gulf in the summer?
Many years, Texas has a high pressure area that sits on top of it. The fronts stop coming through and we tend to get weather that is monotonously hot. However, we do get rain as a result of convection hot air rises, with humidity cools and turns to rain. But it also depends on where in Texas and OK. The eastern part tends to be very humid and the west, very dry. Many summers we have desert like humid in west Texas.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Originally Posted by DigitalDimension
The Desert Monsoon only affects extreme Western Texas; any summer rain in Central Texas comes from the Gulf storms that make it there. Although the monsoon creates high numbers of thunderstorms during the Southwestern summer, the rainfall totals from the storms are very pitiful; a lot of storms just end up producing virga.
I think I've read in places that the Desert Southwest climate we have been seeing recently is of an abnormally wet period, and masks the true dryness of that region; if that is the case, then it could be that the monsoon itself is merely a byproduct of this wet period, and may not always be present in a large scale. With the absence of the Desert Monsoon, the inland areas of Texas, as well as Oklahoma, would be getting wetter in the summer. Wetter summers will also happen if the Bermuda High in the Atlantic expands.
One last thing: the hot/dry periods in inland Texas/OK during summer don't necessarily come with humidity. Since the origin is from desert high pressure, the air is actually going to be dry during those hot times. However, those areas ALSO get days where the air is coming from the Gulf, and thus humid. The averages you see are just a composite of those two types of summer days.
There have been quite a few wetter than average summers here in AZ, and if you look at the last two decades, the SW is wet when Dallas,Austin and OKC are dry, and when coastal CA is warmer than avg. When it's drier than avg in AZ, coastal CA is cooler than avg, and Dallas,Austin and OKC are wetter/stormier than avg. It all has to due with the placement of the two subtropical ridges, the one that sits over texas/Ok and the one that sits over the open Pacific west of California
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