Forget the calendar.
Here in the Rio Grande Valley, you know winter’s really, truly over when you see a forecast for your first 100-degree day.
And that day is almost here.
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Brownsville are calling for triple digit-temperatures up and down the Valley on Wednesday, with the potential to topple all-time records from Brownsville to McAllen.
The forecast for Brownsville is for a high of 98, one off the all-time record set in 2019, with what would be record-breaking high temps of 102 in Harlingen and 104 in McAllen. Normal highs for April 6 in the Valley are in the low to mid-80s.
“Heading into this week, we’ll see a gradual warming trend, but Wednesday is the first day that we’ll see more widespread triple digits across the area,” Laura Farris, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville, said Sunday.
“And that’ll be partly due to the drier air that’s moving in, and we’ll have some southwesterly winds bringing in drier air from the west,” she added. “There will be some compressional heating, too, off the mountain ranges in Mexico, which helps to heat up the air a little bit more.”
For the record, the winter of 2021-22 faded into the past tense with the equinox on March 20, when spring officially began. Despite the 100-degree temperatures forecast this week, summer doesn’t begin this year until June 21.
The good news is Farris said forecasters don’t believe these super-hot temperatures are going to linger.
“This is in advance of the next front that we have moving in Wednesday evening into Wednesday night,” she said. “It’s not a strong front, but sometimes we see these huge spikes right before these fronts.”
Temperatures on Thursday and Friday should be back within normal ranges for the Valley, with highs ranging from 79 to 89 on Thursday, and 79 to 86 on Friday, Farris said.
“This will be a pretty noticeable difference going from triple digits to the 80s across the area,” Farris said.
