What's the Most Temperatures Across Texas Have Varied in One Day? Curious Texas Investigates

Texas is known for for its inconsistent weather. It can be sunny one moment and start pouring the next. Temperatures can also take drastic turns.This is why the saying “If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait five minutes and it’ll change” is so popular.Curious about Texas’ crazy weather patterns, Bobby McDonald asked The Dallas Morning News: Has there ever been recorded a 100-degree difference in temperatures between one area of the state and another at the same time?McDonald’s question is part of Curious Texas, an ongoing project from The News that invites you to join in our reporting process. The idea is simple: You have questions, and our journalists are trained to track down answers.You can send us your Curious Texas questions by texting "DMN" to 214-817-3868. Follow the prompts and introduce yourself to us, share your story or questions and we'll text you with information as we report the story.To answer McDonald’s question, we widened its parameters a bit. Because it would be hard to find an exact 100-degree difference between two Texas cities at the exact time, we searched for the biggest difference between two Texas cities on one day.We picked Brownsville and Dalhart because both cities have weather data dating back to several decades. Along the Texas-Mexico border, Brownsville is one of Texas’ warmest cities, and in the Texas Panhandle Dalhart is one of the Lone Star State’s coolest cities.To find the biggest difference, we looked up the coldest low temperatures ever recorded in Dalhart and the hottest high temperatures recorded in Brownsville, and then we searched to see if there was a matching day.We found one match: On Feb. 10, 1981, the low temperature in Dalhart dipped to -3 degrees. On the same day, more than 860 miles to the south, the high temperature in Brownsville reached a balmy 90 degrees — a difference of 93 degrees between the two cities. It’s not exactly a 100-degree difference, but it’s closest we could find.  Continue reading...