Austin heading for its top 10 warmest winter ever
AUSTIN (KXAN) — As we wrap up our third La Niña winter in a row, we're on the brink of making it one of the warmest winters in recorded history in Central Texas.
Data at Austin's Camp Mabry goes back to 1897, and we look to be heading for 9th or 10th place for the warmest meteorological winters since record keeping began.
Meteorological winter began December 1 and ends February 28, a full 90 days later.
As I write this we're currently sitting in 13th place for warmest winters with an average mean temperature of 55.6º.
Weather data from February 26-28 is not included yet and with well above normal temperatures that should be enough to bump our average mean temperature for the season to 56.0º or higher by the end of the month.
The average mean temperature accounts for both the high temperature and the low temperature for a particular day.
An average mean winter temperature of 56.0º would put us tied for the 10th warmest winter in Austin history.
A TYPICAL winter average mean temperature is 53.9º, which means this winter will likely average more than 2º warmer than normal.
The warmest winter ever? The winter of 2016-2017 which had an average temperature of 58.7º
Other notable winter 2022-2023 statistics
As is typical with La Nina winter's in Central Texas, it wasn't just warm it was dry. We picked up only 4.99" of rain through February 26th, which would make it the 45th driest year.
A typical winter in Austin gets 7.25 inches of rain, meaning our rainfall deficit for the season was 2.26"
Austin also recorded winter's warmest single day average temperature on February 22nd. On that day our high was 91º, our low was 69º so our average temperature for the day was 80º. No day has ever had an average temperature that warm in the winter.