San Antonio is getting hotter, and climate change is to blame, study says

You may need to get used to San Antonio’s current bout with blazing heat. It could be the new normal according to a recent study.

Temperatures in the Alamo City are expected to climb to a record 106 degrees Tuesday, with the heat index reaching a painful 118 degrees from 3-5 p.m. That prompted the National Weather Service to issue an excessive heat warning until 9 p.m. Wednesday.

But that’s not just an anomaly. Average summer temperatures in San Antonio have been climbing steadily for the past few decades, and climate change is to blame, according to a study released in May by the nonprofit group Climate Central.

Between 1970 and 2022, the average summer temperature in San Antonio climbed 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the study. The average summer high in San Antonio now stands at 88.1 degrees.

San Antonio’s warming was also higher than the national average. Average summer temperatures in the 242 U.S. locations analyzed in the study increased by an average of 2.4 degrees, or about half of the Alamo City’s jump over that time.

The city where the average summer temperature increased the most during the study period was Reno, Nevada, with highs increasing by 11.1 degrees on average.

“Climate change made the conditions at least 5x more likely, potentially far more,” Climate Central’s U.S. Climate Shift Index said of the temperatures in South Texas on Tuesday. “This is an exceptional event driven by climate change.”

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This article appears in Jun 14-27, 2023.