February Starts Warm after Wet January

Dalhart Weather Review
by Aaron Graves

(This article ran in the Feb. 11, 2015 edition of "The County Times Two")

Dalhart Received 9.2 inches of snow Jan. 21. Since then we
have enjoyed a warming trend, breaking two high
temperature records in February.

There is nothing like sunshine and a warm day in the middle of winter. As much as I enjoy a good snow, it is a relief to leave the house without having to look for my coat, boots, gloves, scarf, toboggan, thermal underwear, coffee thermos, backpack survival kit, GPS emergency locator beacon, and sled dog team. 

Instead, I got to enjoy a round of disc golf over the weekend. Rita Blanca Lake has a complete, 18 hole disc golf course, and I took my family and friends along for a Sunday afternoon outing. Not only is it fun game, it is a sport... which technically makes me an athlete, regardless of the fact I only made it seven holes before passing out. 

February started off in the 40's, but quickly warmed up. Daily high temperatures over the past week made it into the 70's and 80's. As of Feb. 9, we have an average high of 65.9 degrees. Compare that to the average high of 49.1 degrees for all of January. 

The high of 84 on Feb. 7, the warmest day so far this month, broke the record of 76 degrees set back in 1963. Likewise, the high of 83 on Feb. 6 broke the record of 76 from 2009. 

We have received 1.72" of precipitation since Jan. 1, which puts us 1.05" AHEAD of normal. Most of that total came from a heavy snow storm on Jan. 21 which left 9.2" of snow behind, according to the National Weather Service in Amarillo. That translated into 1.03" of precipitation. We added another 0.30" of precipitation on Jan. 30 and 31.

High and low temps since the last article

Jan 6: 54, 30
Jan 7: 37, 19
Jan 8: 63, 22
Jan 9: 36, 25
Jan 10: 47, 24
Jan 11: 61, 22
Jan 12: 36, 22
Jan 13: 37, 20
Jan 14: 36, 25
Jan 15: 57, 23
Jan 16: 63, 19
Jan 17: 61, 26
Jan 18: 70, 30
Jan 19: 72, 30
Jan 20: 45, 34
Jan 21: 38, 30
Jan 22: 31, 12
Jan 23: 40, 5
Jan 24: 40, 22
Jan 25: 50, 25
Jan 26: 70, 34
Jan 27: 72, 39
Jan 28: 70, 35
Jan 29: 52, 37
Jan 30: 42, 36
Jan 31: 44, 34
Feb 1: 41, 28
Feb 2: 57, 27
Feb 3: 65, 29
Feb 4: 56, 24
Feb 5: 58, 25
Feb 6: 83, 28
Feb 7: 84, 39
Feb 8: 74, 42
Feb 9: 75, 33