September is the cruelest month. At least, it can feel that way in Austin. With summer behind us and fall beginning, the month raises hopes for a return to cooler, wetter weather. Then, often, it dashes those hopes with brutal heat and aridness.
This year was no exception, with highs most days in the 90s and barely any rainfall recorded all month long.
“September has been super dry,” Orlando Bermudez, a forecaster with the National Weather Service Office in New Braunfels, told KUT.
Bermudez said Austin averages about 2.94 inches of rain in September. Last month, the weather station at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport recorded just 0.08 inches, with most of that happening in the first few days of the month.
That makes it the third driest September ever recorded at the airport's weather station, with September 2011 — a year of serious drought — keeping the top spot with only 0.01 inches of rain recorded.
1989, another drought year, remained in second with 0.02 inches recorded.
The Camp Mabry weather station, closer to downtown, tracked 0.37 inches of rain last month, making it the 11th driest September in the record books.
The lack of rain is quickly pulling Central Texas back toward drought conditions that had been alleviated by a wetter than average start to the summer.
In mid-September, only about 18% of Travis County was classified as “abnormally dry” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. By Sept. 24, the last time the drought report was released, 88% of the county was drier than usual.
Bermudez said, when it comes to rainfall totals from the beginning of the year, Austin is still slightly above average, thanks to rains in the spring and early summer.
He said the dryness has been accompanied by above average heat, reaching into the 90s most days in September and into October.
Tuesday is expected to get to 97 degrees, he said. “That is really close to record-breaking. And if it doesn't break the record, it is way above normal by 8 to 10 degrees.”
Hotter and drier autumns are becoming more common in Austin and much of the world, as global warming accelerates.
The next few months are likely to continue the trend. The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center is showing hotter and drier than average weather is likely for all of Texas into the winter.
