DALLAS — Sure, technically, summer only started here in North Texas on June 21 -- according to the astronomical calendar, anyway.
But if you've been watching our WFAA weather team's forecasts throughout May and into June -- or, jeez, if you've even lived through a Texas summer just once before -- then you know that climatological summer klicks off around these parts well before the solstice's arrival.
To that end, you've likely also noticed how hot things have already gotten this summer in particular, right? In June alone, North Texas has endured nine 100-plus-degree days. That's so many!
And not just anecdotally, either: Compared to record-breaking (and legendarily hot) summers like 2011 and 1980, which saw seven and 13 100-degree June days respectively, 2022's nine 100-degree June days have this year keeping pace with some all-time summers.
Does that mean we're destined, then, to see something along the lines of 2011's 78 days of 100-plus degree days or 1980's 69 days at 100-plus degrees? Not necessarily.
While most of WFAA's meteorologists agree that 2022 will like see a hotter-than-average summer -- around 20 or so 100-degree days is usually this region's sweet spot -- none of them foresee an overwhelming number of sweltering days on our horizon.
How do we know this? Because, just for fun and to spark a little competition, we recently asked all five of our station's meteorologists to take a guess on how many 100-plus-degree days we'd see throughout the region in 2022.
Here are the numbers each provided us -- along with their reasoning for how they got there.
Pete Delkus: 34 days
How did I come up with my forecast of 34 triple-digit days for the year? Here’s my rationale. We’re going to end June with nine triple-digit days. That’s seven more than normal for the month. We average 20 total for the year. Seven is the average in July, 10 is the average for August and one is the average for September. If you take the averages of those three months (18) and add the June total (nine), that gives you 27 triple-digit days.
Finally, all data is pointing to warmer-than-normal conditions for the remainder of the year. Given that, I feel that we should easily be able to able to have three more than average in July, three more than average in August and one more than average in September.
If you do the math, that’s a total of 34 triple-digit days in 2022 -- and the hottest summer in 10 years!
Greg Fields: 40 days
Nothing real scientific at all here. I'm just going with 40. I'm basing this solely on the fact that we are well above the average for June. I think that will be the trend for July and August, too. September will likely get off to a hot start as well.
Mariel Ruiz: 38 days
I think we will see around 38. I don’t think we will see a summer quite like 2011. But we haven’t had a significant amount of triple-digit heat days for a decade. We will likely end up with near 10 or so 100-plus-degree days in June. Given La Niña conditions, a strong triple-digit start, and the driest start to summer since 2013, all signs point to above-normal triple-digit heat days.
Jesse Hawila: 23 days
I’m going with 23 because I’m weekend weather boy and I have never been wrong!
Kyle Roberts: 37 days
While I don't think an absolute repeat of 2011 or 1980 is in our future, an above-normal (if not quite above-normal) triple-digit forecast seems likely. Only nine summers on record have topped the 40 100-degree-day mark, so I'm not going to go that high. But between 30 to 40 seems reasonable to me. I'll settle on 37.