Houston Texas is a tropical climate that is considered to be a humid subtropical per the classification guidelines. With hot and humid summers and milder winters. Houston managed to avoid the “Tornado Alley” qualifications and although they do get some supercell thunderstorms in the spring that will occasionally give birth to a tornado. Typically, the winds are from the south or the southeast and this brings with it heat and moisture that comes in off of the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s not at all unusual for this tropical climate to reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer months and the humidity raises the heat index even higher. It can be sweltering by 8 am thanks to this humidity. On average, Houston will enjoy 106 or more days of this tropical heat annually most of which is from June through September.
It’s not at all unusual for a summer morning to have 90 percent humidity while there is a breeze, there isn’t much relief from this tropical heat unless you’re indoors underneath of an air conditioner. The closer you get to the Gulf of Mexico, the higher the humidity.
This earned the city the “most air-conditioned location on earth” title in 1980. The hottest temps ever recorded in the Houston area was 109 degrees Fahrenheit on September 4th, in the year 2000. It was again recorded on August 28th, in the year 2011.
With milder winters, January is typically 53 degrees Fahrenheit and they only get an average of 13 days annually where it is at, or below, freezing in the region. On rare occasion, such as that of December 24th, in the year 2004, they will get a snowfall however, it rarely brings more than 1 to 3 inches of snow. These typically happen in the month of December.
According to records, Houston has only seen snowfall from 1985 to 2018 38 times. In February of 1895, they did receive 20 inches of snow and that is the largest amount recorded for the entire state. It was all from one major storm front that hit the region and the temperatures were recorded at 5 degrees Fahrenheit in January of 1930.
Historically, Houston receives an average of 49.8 inches of rainfall. This is based on records that have been kept since 1981. There is frequently localized flooding and that is due to the extremely flat topography and the clay soils that won’t hold the water but rather, repel the water.