Once a year in the first week of January, I compile an annual weather summary and comparison for the past seven years or so. This year, I found ten points of significant weather data, looking back from the end of 2022 to the start of 2015.
1. In February, we had five days that featured either snow, sleet, graupel, or freezing rain with three different weather systems!
2. Funnel cloud and very brief F-0 tornado on March 13, 2022 about five miles south of Wimberley.
3. July was the second hottest month we have had since records started being kept in 1988 with an average high of 100.7.
4. We had two droughts that each were almost the same duration: June 29 through Aug. 13 (46 days) and then again from Sept. 1 thru Oct. 15 (45 days). That was a first for us to have two very long dry spells in one year! July and September had no rain, tying record lows for each month.
5. November was the first month in nine months where we enjoyed more than our average monthly rainfall total. This year, only two of the 12 months (February and November) were above average.
6. Seven consecutive days below freezing from Dec. 21 through 27.
7. An interesting quirk in nature — our highest wind gust in both 2021 and 2022 was on St. Patrick’s day (March 17) and each time it was 32 mph!
8. We did not get as much rain as Camp Mabry in Austin this year, but we have had more rain in 20 of the past 35 years.
9. This was our fourth driest year in the past 35 years. We only got 58% of our normal rainfall total. (The lowest ever was 15.54”in 2008, which was just the year after our #1 rainfall of 59.55” in 2007!)
10. This was only the third time that we did not have at least one 2” rainfall day.
*THIS CAN BE AS LITTLE AS A TRACE. THERE HAVE BEEN ONLY 10 SIGNIFI-CANT ACCUMULATIONS OF FREEZING RAIN, SLEET AND ICE SINCE 1988 WHEN RECORDS COMMENCED: 0.50” ON 12/13/96, 0.84” ON 12/12/00, 0.32” ON 2/24/03 2/25/03, 0.15” ON 12/7/05, 1.32” ON 1/15/07-1/17/07, 0.21” ON 2/8/11, 0.18” ON 1/23/14, 0.82” ON 2/11 2/12 2021, 0.75” ON 2/17 -2/18/2021, 0.35” ON 2/3/22. THERE HAVE ONLY BEEN SIX SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS OF SNOW: 0.16” ON 2/14/04, 0.75” 2/2/11 - 2/3/11, 2.0” ON 12/7/2017, 2.0” ON 1/10/2021, 6.5” ON 2/14 – 2/15 2021, AND 1.5” ON 2/18/2021.
