ABILENE, Texas (BigCountryHomepage.com) – After a record-breaking weekend of hot weather in Abilene, there seem to be little to no signs of a cool down in the near future.

The mercury in the thermometer at the Abilene airport hit 106° Saturday, Sunday and Monday (July 9-11). That also happened to set new record high temperatures for each of those days.

For the month of July, we’ve broken six high temperature records in 11 days.

We’re off to the hottest first half of July on record, as high temperatures have averaged 103.9° since the beginning of the month. 

For reference, through the first 11 days of July:

1978 – average 102.7° for max temperatures
1980 – 101.5°
2011 – 100.8° (hottest year on record)
1964 – 100.6°

As for where we stand for the year so far, here’s a comparison on average max temperatures from January 1 through July 11:

2022 – 79.8°
2011 – 79.6°
1953 – 78.7°
2000 – 78.7°
2012 – 78.6°

2022 also broke 23 record high temperatures since the beginning of May. That’s a new record high temperature about every three days!

Another kicker is how little rain we’ve seen. The last time the Abilene airport recorded more than one inch of rain in a day was September 30, 2021. Since then, we’ve picked up only around 6.4 inches of rainfall, leading the Key City to be in a near 9-inch deficit for 2022 so far.

This is the second driest year on record so far, picking up only 4.64 inches of rain since January 1. The driest year on record was 1984, coming in at 4.53 inches of rainfall as of July 11th.

To summarize: 2022 has led us to experience the hottest month of May on record, the 3^rd hottest month of June and now the record hottest start to the month of July on record.

Rain has been extremely scarce for some of the Big Country (not all!), and that’s not looking to change as we continue on through July.

2011 is regarded the hottest year on record and while we still haven’t reached August (typically the hottest month of the year), we are challenging 2011 and giving it a run for its money so far.