June was drier, warmer than normal, but drought an unlikely threat.
0 June was warmer and drier than normal in the Austin area, as triple-digit temperatures arrived earlier than usual across Central Texas this year, data from the National Weather Service shows.
The hottest day of the year so far in Austin was June 23, when temperatures reached 104 degrees at Camp Mabry and 102 at Austin-Bergstrom, according to the weather service.
The average high temperature for the month as of June 30 came out 2 degrees warmer than usual, clocking in at 94.3 at Camp Mabry.
Meanwhile, June only saw about 3 inches of rainfall, which was about 1.3 inches less than normal.
But Lower Colorado River Authority meteorologist Bob Rose cautioned about reading too much into — well, the readings.
“But we’re going to end the month short (on rain),” he said.
“We’re not anywhere near the situation we were in 2011, when we started hitting 100s in May,” Rose said.
“We’re not really in a drought right now.” He added: “We’ve got a lot of heat ahead of us for the next two months.” But that’s not unusual for Austin or Texas, nor does it appear to be a repeat of 2011’s brutal summer, when Austin had 90 days with triple-digit temperatures.
As the summer wears on and the heat builds, Rose said that folks should keep one eye on the mercury and another on the Gulf of Mexico, where meteorologists have seen indications that the tropics could produce more storms than normal.