It’s not rare to hit 80° in the month of February in southeast Texas. What’s rarer is how early we see our first 80° day, along with how long that stretch of warmth stays with us. We hit our first 80° day of the 2025 year on Monday, February 3rd.
After combing through at least 25 years of data, there were several factors that stood out.
Key takeaways:
♦ We had our longest stretch of 80° days this year, as spring-like warmth stayed with us from February 03rd-February 09th.
♦ Data taken at Bush International Airport shows that we beat 3 previous records, tied 1 record, and we came just 1° shy of another record.
♦ So far, we do not have the most 80° days for the month of February.
♦ We also did not have the earliest 80° day for the month of February.
Even though we are only 10 days into the month of February, the year that takes the trophy for most 80° in a month goes to 2017, clocking in at 12, 80° days. We still have another 18 days to go, so we’ll see if we can come close to the 2017 record.
February 2017 also had the earliest 80° day in the last 25 years, where we saw that first hit of spring weather on the first day of the month.
Normally for this time of year, Houston should only reach the lower 70s by the end of the month. Since 2000, most months that have seen 80°, don’t see that until near the middle of the month. The fact that we’re seeing this many day’s hitting the 70s and 80s during the first 10 days of February, is a little outside the norm.
In the last 25 years, there’s only a handful of years that haven’t seen 80° in the month of February: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, and 2013.
I continued to look further back, and there were 4 other years since records started at Bush International Airport that caught my eye. These years also had 80° starting earlier than February 03rd - which again, is our first 80° day this year. Going back before the turn of the century in 1974, 1975, and 1989 all saw their first 80° day on February 1st, whereas 1995 saw their first 80° day on February 2nd.
From multiple inches of snow in January to record-breaking heat in the first week of February, it’s no secret that the weather in Houston for 2025 has already started out with a bang.
The next 10 days:
We have a dynamic weather week in store for Houston, as multiple systems bring cold fronts and rain chances. We do not expect to see 80° temperatures over the next 10 days.