Texas Almanac, 1939-1940 Page: 118

                                
TEXAS WEATHER--METEOROLOGICAL DATA.

The Texas climate may be said to vary
from middle temperate to subtropical;
with respect to rainfall it ranges from
humid to arid. The highest mean annual
temperature recorded by the Weather
Bureau is 74.0 degrees at both     Rio
Grande in Starr County and at Mission
in Hidalgo; the lowest is 54.2 degrees at
Dalhart, Dallam County. The greatest
average annual precipitation record at a
government weather station is that of
Bon Weir, Newton County, which is 55.31
inches; the lowest is that of El Paso,
which is 9.16 inches. Between these ex-
tremes of temperature and rainfall are
found a wide variation of climatic condi-
tions.
Especially is there variety since the
gradation in range of temperature is
from north to south, whereas that of rain-
fall is from east to west. From the citrus
groves of the Lower Rio Grande Valley
to the hard wheat fields of the Panhan-
dle, and from the canebrakes pf the
lower Sabine Basin to the yucca of the
Diablo Plateau, Texas presents strange
contrasts in its native and cultivated
plant life. Not only do climatic condi-
tions produce a wide range of crop and
livestock products, but they also have
marked influence upon the production
of a single crop in many instances. The
wide range in temperature is illustrated
by the interesting fact that the farmers
of the southern tip of Texas are some-
times planting their new cotton crop be-
fore the farmers of the northern end of
the state have finished picking the pre-
ceding season's crop; and, again, the
farmers of South Texas sometimes begin
picking the season's cotton crop before
the farmers of Northwest Texas finish
planting.
It has been said in preceding chapters,
with respect to resources, that variety
is the outstanding characteristic of Tex-
as. This is true of weather, as shown by
the figures and examples given, and a
glance at the map shown on another
page. Not only has Texas a large area
but it is so  shaped  that it ranges
through ten degrees of latitude from
north to south and a sweep of 773 miles
from east to west. At the same time it
rises from sea level to plateaus of more
than 4,000 feet, with a few mountain ele-
vations reaching upward of 8,000 feet.
Texas lies at a point where the great
coastal plain, the lower and high western
plains and the Rocky Mountains con-
verge.  Tidewater approaches nearer
to the Great Plains and to the Rocky
Mountains than at any other point, ex-
cept on the western coast. Meteorologi-
cal conditions, combined with Texas' va-
riety of soils and physiographic condi-
tions, give Texas an almost unparalleled
variety of plant life, which is the basis
of its economic and social structure.
(118

Texas Snowfall.
Snowfall reaches a maximum of about
twenty-five inches in the Panhandle. On
the lower plains of North Texas, the av-
erage is about five to ten inches. In the
lower central portion of Texas there is
usually no snow and it is unknown on
the coast and in the Lower Rio Grande
Valley. The first-and-last frost dates for
principal weather stations are given in a
statistical table on an accompanying
page of this chapter. By pin-pointing
these principal weather stations on a
map of Texas an excellent idea of range
of crop growing months in each part of
the state can be obtained.
The midsummer months are warm
throughout Texas. However, both the
region along the coast and the high
plains country find relief in either sea
breezes or the cooling effect of high al-
titude, especially at night. Fortunately,
the two relatively dry seasons through-
out most of Texas come in midsummer
and midwinter, tempering both the heat
of the summer and the cold of the winter.
A glance at the table showing rainfalls in
Texas counties by months will give the
approximate graph of seasonal pr'cipi-
tation in any section of the state in
which one may be interested.
Texas west of the 100th meridian is
frequently represented as arid on com-
mercial maps. As a matter of fact some
of the most productive cotton, wheat,
corn and gram sorghum lands of the
state lie far west of this meridian. The
region west of the Pecos is too dry for
farming without irrigation, as is also
some of the southwestern portion of the
state east of the Pecos, but the upper
middle western portion of the state and
the region of the high plains is excellent
dry farming country. While the rainfall
in much of tins territory is only about
twenty inches annually, its normal distri-
bution is such that it is of maximum ben-
efit to growing crops.
Texas' Colorful Weather.
Because of the colorful character of
Texas weather it has obtained an unde-
served reputation out of the state for
destructive  antics-hurricanes, floods,
drouths, tornadoes, sandstorms, northers.
Although Texas communities sometimes
suffer loss of life and property from sev-
eral types of meteorological disturbances,
its statistical comparison will not give
the state a worse-than-average showing.
The worst storms in Texas history have
been the tropical hurricanes of the Gulf
Coast which sweep in from the sea occa-
sionally, as they do along the entire Gulf
and Atlantic seaboard of tropical and
North America. Their destruction is con-
fined to the coast cities and the immedi-
ate inland territory. In the past, loss of
property and life has been due prima-
rily to the defenseless position of some of