Austin Sees Fewer 100-Degree Days This July Due to Neutral ENSO Phase

The hottest part of the week is now behind us and we continue this weird weather with the arrival of a rare summer cold front this weekend.

First, we’ll wrap up July with a forecast featuring plenty of sunshine, rising humidity, and another day of triple-digit temperatures. After starting the morning in the lower to mid-70s, the temperatures will quickly climb to near 90 at lunch and then afternoon highs will top out between 98 and 101. Winds will remain light out of the south between 3 and 8 mph.

The heat dome of high atmospheric pressure that has lingered over Texas since Monday will shift west, allowing a trough of low pressure and a weak cold front to move toward Central Texas. This will bring more clouds and a small 20% chance of rain, starting Friday and lasting through Sunday. No heavy rainfall or severe weather threats are expected, but a brief downpour of up to a quarter-inch of rain is possible. It’s not enough to cancel outdoor plans, but it’s wise to pack an umbrella just in case.

By Sunday afternoon, rain chances will end as a subtropical ridge of high pressure returns to Central Texas, bringing dry and seasonable weather for the first week of August. Average early August temperatures range from 76 to 99 degrees.

Austin could see another day of triple-digit temperatures Thursday, which has us wondering: Is it weird that it’s already the end of July and Austin has had only a handful of 100-degree days? Yes, and here’s why.

This year, we’ve only recorded five days that reached 100 degrees, which is unusual compared to recent years. In 2024, Austin logged 32 days of 100-degree weather, including 10 days in July. In 2023, Austin tallied 80 days of triple-digit heat, with 25 days occurring in July. Similarly, 2022 produced 68 days of 100-degree heat in Austin, with almost the entire month of July (29 days) hitting that mark. However, in 2021, we only had one day of triple-digit temperatures during the month of July, with a total of 12 for the whole year.

This year is leaning more towards the outcome of the summer of 2021, as the global weather pattern of that year is remarkably similar to what we are experiencing now, which is the neutral phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or when neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions are present.

El Niño occurs when the equatorial waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean become warmer than normal, which can trigger changes in global weather patterns. La Niña is the same kind of naturally occurring phenomenon but the eastern Pacific becomes cooler than normal instead.

Overall, global weather patterns tend to be less influenced by ENSO, often leading to more typical or seasonal weather trends, without the extremes associated with El Niño or La Niña. To understand a little more, the years of 2022, 2023 and 2024 were all considered to have La Nina summers, which led to more extreme heat.