HARLINGEN — At least it was a dry heat.
Temperature records tumbled like shares in a stock-market panic today, with both Harlingen and Brownsville shattering decades-old records for April 26 with highs of 104 degrees in both cities.
Harlingen previously recorded 99 degrees in 1961, and Brownsville registered 98 degrees in 1964.
McAllen-Miller International Airport hit 105 degrees, two degrees shy of that city’s all-time record for the day.
The unseasonably hot weather this spring is a continuation of an unusually warm winter, and meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Brownsville say there’s probably more of the same to come, at least through the early part of summer.
“It’s unusually warm,” agreed National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Brady in Brownsville. “It’s mainly because of the southwesterly winds coming off the downslope of the mountains in Mexico that helped drive the warmer temperatures in our area.”
What’s happened is an invisible bubble called a dryline has pushed well out of its usual haunts in the West Texas desert and settled farther to the east. When that happens it blocks cooler gulf air from wafting inland, instead spinning it away to the north and east and keeping it out of the Rio Grande Valley.
To fill that void, southwesterly winds driving to the northwest rush off the mountains in Mexico and heat up as they move downslope and cross into the United States.
That is the convergence which sends April temperatures rocketing into the hundreds.
Brady said not only did Brownsville break a record for the date, the 104 degrees reported there breaks the all-time record for any day in April set in 1984. Harlingen’s all-time April record is 107 set on April 17, 1920.
But enough about yesterdays.
“We’re going to get a little bit, but not much relief, tomorrow,” Brady said. “It won’t be quite as hot, but some cities like Rio Grande City will hit the 100-degree mark.
“On Friday, and into the start of the weekend on Saturday, we’re rebounding back into the 100- to 105-degree range across the Western Valley,” Brady added. “The Lower to Middle Valley will be in the mid- to upper 90s.”
Hard to believe, but summer doesn’t arrive for nearly two months.
Wednesday’s highs
HARLINGEN — 104 degrees (new record)
BROWNSVILLE — 104 degrees (new record)
MCALLEN — 105 degrees
Previous hottest April 26
HARLINGEN — 99 degrees, 1961
BROWNSVILLE — 98 degrees, 1964
MCALLEN — 107 degrees, 1984
Source: National Weather Service
