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Isaiah Luviano, 8, and his 11-month-old brother Noah keep cool under a water feature at Montie Beach Park on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 in Houston. June 2022 has been the hottest on record in Houston.

Traffic moves down Westpark Drive near the intersection with Chimney Rock Road on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in Houston.

Traffic moves down Westpark Drive near the intersection with Chimney Rock Road on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in Houston.

A pedestrian walks under the Westpark Tollway in the midday heat Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in Houston.

Last month was the hottest June on record for Houston — and, unfortunately, the rest of this summer could also be a swelter.

The average temperature in June, based on daily highs and lows at Bush Intercontinental Airport, was 86.7 degrees. That surpassed the previous record set in June 2011 of 86.2 degrees, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Lance Wood.

“We are expecting July and August to be above normal,” said Wood, who is based in the National Weather Service’s Houston/Galveston office. “It may not end up as above normal as June was, but I do think a warmer-than-normal summer is what we’re looking at.”

The heat has been coupled with dry conditions affecting farmers and ranchers — and, in turn, possibly consumers — across the state. The .13 inches of precipitation made it the third driest June on record, Wood said.

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Multiple factors are contributing to this heat forecast, including ones that could cause a busier-than-normal Atlantic hurricane season.

A main factor is that temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are about 5 degrees warmer than normal, said Scott Collis, an atmospheric scientist at Chicago’s Argonne National Laboratory.

“The Gulf of Mexico is hot right now,” he said. “Not only is it hot — it’s really hot along the Gulf Coast shores.”

Warm water is fuel for hurricanes, and it can cause warmer air to be blown onshore.

Another contributing factor could be La Niña, where cooler-than-normal temperatures across the Pacific Ocean affect weather patterns all around the world, Wood said.

For hurricane season, La Niña enables more storms to develop because it produces less vertical wind shear. Wind shear can tear apart hurricanes as they are trying to develop and intensify.

For summer temperatures, La Niña tends to create a high-pressure system in the middle and upper atmosphere above Texas. This dry air sucks moisture from potential rain clouds. And as the air sinks to the lower atmosphere, it becomes compressed — and thus warmer — because the air density increases, Wood said.

But this summer hasn’t been as dry as 2011, the worst one-year drought on record for Texas. John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas state climatologist and regents professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said this summer started with more moisture in the ground than 2011.

And when there’s more moisture in the ground, temperatures remain cooler as the sun’s energy goes into evaporating that water rather than heating up the ground.

“Summer rainfall is almost impossible to predict very far in advance, so there’s no telling how much relief we might get this year,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “Right now, statewide conditions are generally not as dry as they were in 2011. But they’re drier than they have been since.”

The unofficial average rainfall for January to June Texas was 8.56 inches, according to Nielsen-Gammon. The number for the same period in 2011 was 6.0 inches.

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And this dryness is affecting farmers and ranchers across the state.

Justin Benavidez, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist, is expecting lower yields for summer crops including cotton, sorghum and corn. Red winter wheat, which is largely harvested in July, will also be affected.

Losing crop yield — and having to pay more to irrigate crops that do mature — will make for an especially tough year when considering commodity prices were already volatile due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other global factors.

Cattle ranchers are in a similarly challenging position. The drought means there’s less grass for the cattle to graze on, so ranchers must supplement their feed with hay or grain.

This can be expensive, so Benavidez said many ranchers are culling their herds and sending cattle to slaughter. This could have long-term ramifications in the coming years when ranchers will have fewer cattle to sell, which could cause a drop in beef supply and raise consumer prices.

“Rain would be great, and I’m not going to complain when it comes,” Benavidez said. “But there are production challenges set into motion that will be born out whether it rains or not.”

The dry conditions have also plagued Collis, with the Argonne National Laboratory, as he’s been traveling to Houston for a yearlong storm study.

The study is known as TRACER, which stands for “TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment.” Universities are partnering with organizations that include the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and NASA to examine if soot, dust, smoke and other tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere can cause stronger, rainier thunderstorms.

The study kicked into high gear last month as June is typically Houston’s wettest month. Hobby Airport normally sees 5.32 inches of rain between June 1 and June 28. This year, Collis said it saw .22 inches.

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But Collis said there is a chance that Houston’s weather could be reset by a recent disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico and by the North American Monsoon that forms over northwestern Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico.

Disorganized showers and thunderstorms over the gulf could churn up the water, bringing cooler water to the surface.

Meanwhile, the monsoon’s winds from the west could bring more moisture into the upper parts of the atmosphere that are being dried out by La Niña.

“Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get,” Collis said. “The climate system has all these components, all these wheels working together.”

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Andrea Leinfelder is the space reporter for the Houston Chronicle. 

Andrea writes about NASA and the commercial space sector, where her coverage spans human spaceflight, robotic exploration and operations in low-Earth orbit. For six months of the year, she keeps an eye on the Atlantic hurricane season. Andrea graduated from the University of Florida in 2012 and has lived in Houston since 2014. She enjoys traveling, eating her way across Houston and walking her dog Lizzy.

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