Texas summer heat, humidity and climate by region

Summary

Texas summer heat is not one climate. The same July that brings an average afternoon high near 96°F to Austin and Waco brings about 92°F to 93°F to Kerrville and Amarillo, and the nights are what separate a Hill Country evening from a Houston one. For a retiree who plans to garden, walk, golf or simply sit outside, the useful questions are how many days a year are hot, how warm the nights stay, how often the temperature drops below freezing, and how much rain falls. This guide answers them from NOAA's 1991-2020 U.S. Climate Normals for stations around the state and from National Weather Service heat guidance.

Every station figure here is a published NOAA normal. Where the guide adds the monthly numbers together or subtracts one from another, the sentence says it is our arithmetic. The normals measure temperature, precipitation and degree days, not humidity, so humidity is discussed separately using the Weather Service's own heat index material. No electricity cost is quoted, because a household's bill depends on the house, the utility and the rate plan.

A station is a point, and a lake, a hill or a big city can change local conditions. The comparisons below are therefore most useful for ranking regions against each other, not for predicting the weather on a particular street. For hazards that climate does not capture, including hail, wildfire, drought and outages, see the guide to Texas hail, wildfire, drought, heat and power outages, and for hurricanes see the Gulf Coast insurance guide.

Key takeaways

• Central and North Texas have the hottest ordinary summers outside the border: 1991-2020 normal July highs of 96.7°F at Waco, 96.1°F at Austin-Bergstrom and 95.6°F at Dallas-Fort Worth, with 100°F days counted in the twenties per year (our arithmetic). McAllen is hotter still at 98.5°F.
• Nights separate regions more than days do. The normal July low is about 75°F to 79°F in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Corpus Christi and the Valley, about 70°F in the Hill Country, and 66°F to 69°F at Amarillo and Lubbock.
• NOAA normals do not include humidity. The Weather Service's heat index shows that the same air temperature feels much hotter when humidity is high, and its HeatRisk product accounts for warm overnight lows. Use the heat index and HeatRisk, not the thermometer, for planning.
• Winter matters too: our arithmetic from the normals gives about 108 freezing-low days a year at Amarillo and 84 at Lubbock, 33 at Austin-Bergstrom, 10 at Houston and 1 at Brownsville. Cooling demand runs the other way, about 3.1 times higher at McAllen than at Amarillo by degree days.
• Older adults are among the groups the Weather Service lists as vulnerable to heat. Plan outdoor routines around early morning and the spring and autumn shoulder seasons, learn the signs of heat illness, and check the specific address's utility bills before buying.

What the 1991-2020 normals are, and which stations are used

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information describes the U.S. Climate Normals as a large suite of data products giving information about typical climate conditions for thousands of locations. The official normals are calculated for a uniform 30-year period and consist of annual, seasonal, monthly, daily and hourly averages and statistics of temperature, precipitation and other variables from almost 15,000 U.S. weather stations. NCEI produces them every 10 years, and the 1991-2020 normals are the latest in a series first produced in the 1950s. NCEI says normals act as a ruler to compare today's weather and tomorrow's forecast, and as a predictor of conditions in the near future. A normal is an average, so any single summer can be hotter or cooler.

The monthly normals used here come from these NOAA stations: Austin-Bergstrom airport, Dallas-Fort Worth airport, San Antonio International Airport, Houston Intercontinental Airport, Corpus Christi, Waco Regional Airport, College Station, Tyler, the Rio Grande Valley stations at McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville, El Paso International Airport, Lubbock and Amarillo, plus cooperative stations named for Boerne, Fredericksburg and Kerrville (listed by NOAA as Kerrville 3 NNE). Several are airports on the edge of a city. Published place pages for Austin-area, North Texas, Houston-area, Coastal Bend, Waco-area and Hill Country towns cite one of these stations, so the same numbers can be compared across places.

Four measures matter most for a retired household. The monthly normal high and low show the typical daytime and overnight temperatures. The count of days with a maximum of 90°F or higher, and 100°F or higher, shows how many days a year are hot. The count of days with a minimum at or below 32°F shows freeze exposure. Cooling and heating degree days are NOAA's index of how much and how long the temperature runs above or below a comfort reference, so they work as a rough ranking of air conditioning and heating demand. Precipitation is the annual rainfall normal.

Summer heat by region

Central and North Texas have the hottest ordinary summers outside the border country. At Waco Regional Airport the normal July high is 96.7°F and the August high is 97.1°F. At Austin-Bergstrom airport the normal July high is 96.1°F and the August high is 97.0°F. At Dallas-Fort Worth airport the normal July high is 95.6°F and the August high is 95.8°F. The normal July low is 74.4°F at Waco, 73.0°F at Austin-Bergstrom and 75.8°F at Dallas-Fort Worth. Our arithmetic from the monthly counts of days at or above 100°F puts the yearly total at about 24 days at Waco, about 24 at Austin-Bergstrom and about 20 at Dallas-Fort Worth. The Dallas-Fort Worth normal for July shows 28.7 days with a high of 90°F or more, which is nearly every day of the month.

The Gulf side is a little less extreme by day and much warmer at night. The normal July high is 94.5°F at Houston Intercontinental, 93.7°F at Corpus Christi and 94.9°F at San Antonio International, and the normal July low is 75.7°F at Houston, 75.5°F at Corpus Christi and 74.7°F at San Antonio. Our arithmetic gives about 7 days a year at 100°F or higher at Houston and about 4 at Corpus Christi, compared with about 18 at San Antonio and about 24 at Austin-Bergstrom. The heat is less often extreme at the coast, but it arrives with little overnight relief and, for Houston, much more rain. College Station and Tyler sit between the two patterns, with normal July highs of 95.4°F and 93.1°F and lows of 74.9°F and 73.6°F.

The Hill Country runs cooler, especially at night. The normal July high is 91.6°F at Kerrville, 93.4°F at Fredericksburg and 92.5°F at Boerne, and the normal July low is 69.8°F, 70.7°F and 71.0°F. Using the Austin-Bergstrom and Houston normals as comparison points, our arithmetic puts the Kerrville July low 3.2°F below Austin-Bergstrom's and 5.9°F below Houston's. The Hill Country is not mild in summer: our arithmetic from the monthly counts of days at or above 90°F gives about 95 at Kerrville and Boerne and about 104 at Fredericksburg. But a 70°F night makes an early-morning walk or an open window more realistic than it is on the coast. The Kerrville, Fredericksburg and Boerne place guides cite these stations.

The Rio Grande Valley is the hottest and longest-season region. The normal July high is 98.5°F at McAllen, 96.2°F at Harlingen and 95.0°F at Brownsville, and the August high at McAllen is 99.6°F. The normal July low is 78.8°F at McAllen, 75.3°F at Harlingen and 77.8°F at Brownsville. Our arithmetic gives about 177 days a year with a high of 90°F or more at McAllen, 163 at Harlingen and 140 at Brownsville, and about 40 days at 100°F or higher at McAllen, compared with about 2 at Brownsville.

West Texas and the Panhandle have hot days and cool nights. At El Paso International Airport the normal July high is 95.8°F and the normal July low is 73.0°F, and our arithmetic gives about 27 days a year at 100°F or higher. At Lubbock the July high is 93.4°F and the low is 69.0°F, and at Amarillo the July high is 92.9°F and the low is 66.4°F. Our arithmetic gives about 72 days a year at 90°F or higher at Amarillo, compared with about 124 at Austin-Bergstrom. The daily swing in July, the difference between the normal high and low, is 26.5°F at Amarillo and 24.4°F at Lubbock according to the NOAA series, compared with 18.7°F at Houston and 18.1°F at Corpus Christi.

Humidity and dry heat

The Weather Service's heat index is the tool that combines temperature and humidity. It defines the Heat Index as a measure of how hot it really feels when relative humidity is factored in with the actual air temperature, and gives an example: an air temperature of 96°F with relative humidity of 65% produces a heat index of 121°F. Those heat index values were devised for shady, light wind conditions, and the Weather Service adds that exposure to full sunshine can increase heat index values by up to 15°F, and that strong winds, particularly with very hot, dry air, can be extremely hazardous. In other words, humid heat and dry heat are both dangerous, in different ways.

The NOAA normals used here do not include humidity or dew point, so they cannot say directly which regions feel muggier. They do offer two reasonable clues, and both are our reading rather than an official humidity ranking. The first is overnight temperature. A July low in the mid-70s at Houston (75.7°F), Corpus Christi (75.5°F), Dallas-Fort Worth (75.8°F) and the lower Rio Grande Valley (77.8°F at Brownsville and 78.8°F at McAllen) means little relief after dark, and the Weather Service's HeatRisk product explicitly considers whether overnight lows are warm enough to add to heat stress into the next day. A July low in the upper 60s at Kerrville, Lubbock and Amarillo means more relief. The second clue is rainfall. Our arithmetic from the monthly precipitation normals gives about 52 inches a year at Houston and about 48 at Tyler, compared with about 9 at El Paso and about 18 at Lubbock, which fits the familiar picture of a humid east and a dry west, although rainfall is not the same as humidity.

For a retiree the practical difference is how the body copes. The Weather Service says that during extremely hot and humid weather the body's ability to cool itself is challenged, so in humid regions the heat index, not the thermometer, is the number to watch. The Weather Service's heat safety pages list older adults, particularly those with pre-existing diseases, who take certain medications, who live alone or who have limited mobility, among the groups particularly vulnerable to heat, and say to check in with friends and relatives in those groups. Which kind of heat suits a household is a personal and medical question to discuss with a doctor.

Two Weather Service tools help with timing. HeatRisk gives a color and a number for each location up to seven days ahead, built from how far above normal the temperature is, the time of year, the duration of unusual heat and whether temperatures pose an elevated risk using CDC heat-health thresholds. The Weather Service describes it as experimental, supplementary to official heat watches, warnings and advisories, and as a tool for people who are sensitive to heat. Wet Bulb Globe Temperature adds wind and solar radiation and is described as particularly effective for active people such as outdoor workers and athletes. A retiree who gardens or plays golf is the same sort of active person.

Freezes, rain and cooling demand

Texas winters vary as much as summers. Our arithmetic from the monthly counts of days with a minimum at or below 32°F gives about 108 days a year at Amarillo and 84 at Lubbock, 46 at Kerrville, 42 at Fredericksburg and at El Paso, 40 at Boerne, 33 at Austin-Bergstrom, 29 at Dallas-Fort Worth and 14 at San Antonio, and about 10 at Houston, 4 at Corpus Christi and 1 at Brownsville. The normal January low is 24.9°F at Amarillo, 33.8°F at Kerrville, 37.7°F at Austin-Bergstrom, 43.7°F at Houston, 48.0°F at Corpus Christi and 53.1°F at Brownsville. Hill Country and Panhandle winters, then, include far more freezing nights than the coast does, which matters for gardens, pipes and the driving conditions in the Panhandle. A freeze can also strain the power system, as the guide on inland hazards and power outages describes.

Rainfall is lowest in the west and highest in the east. Our arithmetic from the monthly precipitation normals gives about 9 inches a year at El Paso, 18 at Lubbock, 20 at Amarillo, 31 at Kerrville and Fredericksburg, 32 at San Antonio and Corpus Christi, 36 at Austin-Bergstrom and Waco, 37 at Dallas-Fort Worth, 38 at Boerne, 42 at College Station, 48 at Tyler and 52 at Houston. Annual totals hide a pattern that matters for water: much of the rain comes in heavy bursts, and the same stations can see flood and drought in the same year, as the drought and lake-level section of the inland hazards guide shows with dated 2026 conditions.

Cooling degree days give a rough ranking of air conditioning demand, and heating degree days of heating demand. Our arithmetic from the monthly normals puts the cooling degree-day total at about 4,989 at McAllen, 4,542 at Brownsville, 3,737 at Corpus Christi, 3,288 at Houston, 3,148 at San Antonio, 2,996 at Austin-Bergstrom, 2,824 at Dallas-Fort Worth, 2,178 at Kerrville and 1,609 at Amarillo. McAllen's total is about 3.1 times Amarillo's. Our arithmetic gives heating degree-day totals that run the other way: about 3,871 at Amarillo, 2,291 at Kerrville, 2,220 at Dallas-Fort Worth, 1,718 at Austin-Bergstrom, 1,266 at Houston and 453 at McAllen. A Hill Country or Panhandle household buys less cooling and more heating than a coastal one. This is only an index; an actual bill depends on the house, the insulation, the utility and the rate plan.

What the climate means for an outdoor routine

The monthly normals show when the outdoors is comfortable. At Austin-Bergstrom the normal high is 80.1°F in April and 82.5°F in October, compared with 96.1°F in July, and at San Antonio it is 80.3°F in April and 82.2°F in October. At Dallas-Fort Worth the April and October highs are 76.1°F and 78.4°F, and at Houston they are 80.1°F and 82.8°F. At Kerrville they are 76.4°F and 78.2°F. In most regions, then, spring and autumn are the seasons for midday activity, and the summer pattern shifts to early morning and evening. In the Rio Grande Valley the normal April high is 88.4°F at McAllen and 85.7°F at Brownsville, so there is less of a comfortable shoulder season in that region.

The Weather Service's heat index page quotes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's protective measures for outdoor work: acclimatize on the first day working in heat and after any extended absence, provide shade, schedule work earlier or later in the day, use work and rest schedules, limit strenuous work and use relief workers when needed. Those are guidelines for workers, but they translate directly to a retiree with a garden or a golf tee time: start early, find shade, take breaks, and take a hot day off after a week away.

Know the warning signs. The Weather Service describes heat cramps as painful muscle spasms with heavy sweating, heat exhaustion as heavy sweating, weakness, cool, pale, clammy skin, a fast, weak pulse, dizziness, nausea or fainting, and heat stroke as a severe medical emergency with confusion, slurred speech and a body temperature above 103°F. It says to call 911 or get the person to a hospital immediately for heat stroke, and cautions that using a fan to blow air toward someone can make them hotter when heat index temperatures are above the 90s.

Climate also interacts with housing. A house in the Valley, Houston or Corpus Christi area will run its air conditioning for more of the year than one in Kerrville or Lubbock, according to the degree-day normals, and a house in the Panhandle will heat for more of it. Shade trees, window orientation, insulation and a well-maintained cooling system matter wherever the house is, and a buyer can ask for summer and winter utility bills for the specific address.

Using climate to narrow a search

A short sequence can turn the numbers into a decision. First decide which type of summer is tolerable: the long, hot Valley season, the 100-degree days of Central Texas and the border, the humid and warm-night coast, or the cooler-night Hill Country and High Plains. Then decide what winter tolerance is: freezes are routine in the Panhandle and Hill Country and rare in the Valley and on the coast. Then match the region's hazards: hurricanes and surge on the coast, hail across North Texas and San Antonio, wildfire at the edge of development, and drought and restrictions on aquifers and lakes. Climate is one dimension; healthcare access, taxes and cost of living are others.

These place pages cite the stations used here, and each has more detail on its own climate and insurance risk: Georgetown, San Marcos and Bastrop (Austin-Bergstrom); Fort Worth, Denton, Frisco, McKinney, Fairview, Mansfield and Granbury (Dallas-Fort Worth); San Antonio; The Woodlands, Conroe, Willis and Cypress (Houston Intercontinental); Corpus Christi, Rockport and Port Aransas (Corpus Christi); Waco, Woodway, Temple and Salado (Waco Regional Airport); and College Station. A station at an airport describes the airport, so treat each number as a regional guide rather than a street-level forecast.

The state-level tax guides explain the other part of the cost picture. The Texas retirement taxes guide, the property taxes and appraisal districts guide and the homestead and age-65 exemption guide cover taxes, and a buyer who expects to run the air conditioning most of the year should treat the utility bill as a separate line next to them.

Places where this matters most

• GeorgetownA Williamson County city on the northern end of the Austin corridor, with a historic town center, a hospital and clinics in town, an age-restricted community on its west side, and a property-tax picture that depends on a layered set of local taxing units.
• San MarcosA Hays County river and university city on the Austin to San Antonio corridor whose retirement case rests on one large 55+ community, a hospital in town, and a flood and aquifer picture that deserves a close look before buying.
• BastropThe Bastrop County seat in the Lost Pines forest on the Colorado River, with a small downtown, an emergency room in town, a new 55+ Del Webb community under construction, and a wildfire history that any buyer should understand.
• Fort WorthFort Worth is the large city anchoring the west side of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, mostly in Tarrant County, with a hospital district, major medical centers and two airports of its own. It is better understood as a set of very different neighborhoods than as one retirement market.
• DentonA Denton County university city on I-35 at the northern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with two hospitals on its I-35 corridor, a commuter rail line, a 55+ golf community on its south side, and a citywide age profile that is young because of its universities.
• FriscoA fast-growing Dallas-area suburb that straddles the Collin and Denton county line, with three hospitals in the city, a mostly post-2000 housing stock, a high-cost and high-income profile, a lakeside 55+ community on Lake Lewisville, and a property-tax bill that depends on which of several school districts and which of two appraisal districts a parcel falls in.
• McKinneyA large Collin County city north of Dallas with a preserved historic downtown, two full-service hospitals inside the city, a housing stock priced below neighboring Frisco, a 55+ Del Webb community inside the master-planned Trinity Falls, and a property-tax picture built from the city, county, community college and school district plus any special district.
• FairviewA small incorporated town in Collin County with one of the oldest age profiles among the north Dallas suburbs, a 55+ golf community, a low town tax rate, local shopping, trails and fire service, and no hospital of its own: the nearest hospitals are in Allen and McKinney.
• MansfieldMansfield is a suburban city in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex whose limits reach into Tarrant, Johnson and Ellis counties, with a 294-bed hospital in town and a gated 55+ community that is selling new homes.
• GranburyA Hood County city on Lake Granbury, a Brazos River reservoir southwest of Fort Worth, with a historic square, a community hospital and a freestanding emergency room, a city-owned airport, one of the older populations in the Fort Worth area, and a property-tax and water picture that depends on Hood County, Granbury ISD and the lake's drought rules.
• San AntonioA very large Bexar County city and metro hub with a concentrated medical center cluster, a university-hospital district, an international airport, a long-standing military retiree community and a property-tax picture that varies sharply by school district, special district and suburb.
• The WoodlandsA large planned township north of Houston, split between Montgomery and Harris counties, with no city government, a township tax layered on county, school and district taxes, two major hospital campuses in town, and flood and hurricane exposure that depends on the individual parcel.
• ConroeThe Montgomery County seat on Lake Conroe, an incorporated city with its own tax rate, a 332-bed hospital in town, a lower cost of housing than neighboring The Woodlands, and lake and flood context shaped by a reservoir the San Jacinto River Authority operates.
• WillisA small Montgomery County city north of Houston, near Lake Conroe, with its own city and school-district taxes, lower survey housing values than its neighbors, no hospital of its own, and a 55+ community with lake access that drives most of its retirement relevance.
• CypressAn area of northwest Harris County, not an incorporated city in the Census Bureau's 2020 Texas place list, defined by its ZIP codes, the Cypress-Fairbanks school district and a patchwork of municipal utility districts, with large master-planned communities such as Bridgeland, a Houston Methodist hospital on the US 290 corridor, and flood exposure that varies by parcel.
• Corpus ChristiThe largest city on the Texas Coastal Bend, centered in Nueces County, with the area's principal hospital campuses, a city-operated international airport, Gulf and bay shoreline, a county-wide windstorm-insurance designation, and a multi-year water-supply drought that the city reports in published restriction stages.
• RockportA small Aransas County bay-side city, closely tied to neighboring Fulton, with one of the oldest age profiles in the Coastal Bend, a freestanding emergency room as its local medical anchor, a county-wide windstorm-insurance designation, and a recent history of direct hurricane impact.
• Port AransasA small Nueces County resort city on a Gulf barrier island with one of the highest shares of residents aged 65 and over in the Coastal Bend, a very high share of vacant (second-home and rental) housing, city-run 24-hour emergency medical services, hospital care on the mainland in Corpus Christi, and direct exposure to Gulf storm surge.
• WacoThe McLennan County seat on the Waco side of the I-35 corridor, with two full-service hospitals, a regional airport, Lake Waco, a median age under 30, home values well below Woodway's and a rental-heavy housing market.
• WoodwayA McLennan County city of about 9,500 residents on the west side of Lake Waco, adjoining Waco, with a high share of older residents, mostly owner-occupied housing, city parks and an arboretum, and two Waco hospitals close by.
• TempleA Bell County city on the I-35 corridor anchored by Baylor Scott & White's Temple hospital campuses and a Veterans Affairs medical center, with a larger and younger population than a typical retirement town and a city tax rate near 0.70 per $100.
• SaladoA small Bell County village on the I-35 corridor with one of the highest older-resident shares in the region, higher home values than nearby Temple, its own school district and cultural arts district, and hospital care in Temple.
• College StationA Brazos County university city that is home to Texas A&M, with a median age of 22.9, a renter-majority housing market, two hospital systems, a commercial airport and a 55+ community that describes itself as the first of its kind in the area.
• BoerneA Kendall County city in the Hill Country with a historic Main Street district, a younger and higher-income profile than the region's retirement towns, a freestanding emergency room and no inpatient hospital described on the hospital system's pages, and a 2026 flood that put creek risk and water supply at the center of the buying decision.
• FredericksburgA Gillespie County city in the Texas Hill Country with a historic downtown square, a population in which about a third of residents are 65 or older, a hospital in town, a tax picture built from a short list of local units, and a groundwater-based water supply that has been under mandatory conservation.
• KerrvilleThe Kerr County seat on the upper Guadalupe River and the western medical hub of the Hill Country, with a regional hospital, a VA medical center, a large older-resident population, and a July 2026 flood whose recovery the city is still documenting.
• El PasoA large high-desert border city and the main medical center of Far West Texas, with a Level I trauma hospital, a health sciences center, a VA health care system and an international airport, dry winters with freezing nights, very hot summers, a July-to-September monsoon flood season and a water supply that has shifted from the Hueco Bolson toward the Rio Grande and treated alternatives.

Related guides

• Texas hail, wildfire, drought, heat and power outages: the inland hazards
• Texas Gulf Coast hurricane, windstorm and flood insurance
• Texas retirement taxes: state income tax, Social Security, pensions and federal taxes
• Texas property taxes and appraisal districts: how to compare actual total tax bills
• Texas homestead exemption, the age-65 exemption and the school tax ceiling