Changing rainfall and humidity within Southeast Texas

Southeast Texas houses a precipitation transition zone between drier conditions to the North and West and some of the wettest parts of the continental U.S. to the East. The Region has seen an increase in its reported normal annual precipitation totals in recent decades. In order to determine if the additional rainfall has been influenced by warming temperatures or is within the variability of the State’s long-term drought cycles, several analyses were performed on historical climate data. The analyses answered several questions: Have global and regional climate change models predicted precipitation increases in Southeast Texas and are future increases expected? Do historical monthly precipitation totals at various sites in the region provide clear trends of wetter conditions that can be discerned from long-term drought cycles? Are rainfall patterns changing with less frequent, heavier rain events? Do the reported increases in annual rainfall actually lead to wetter conditions in the region? Climate models have not predicted larger annual average precipitation totals nor do they forecast increases for Southeast Texas. While recent decades may have seen more rain relative to earlier periods, a combined analysis of observation stations across different parts of the Region shows that long-term trends are dependent on when the data is selected relative to a drought cycle. While some stations show larger amounts of rain falling during fewer days, these trends do not hold across all periods. An examination of hourly data does not show an increase in extreme rainfall events or a decrease in the number of hours during which rain has fallen. Even though rainfall has not decreased, average relative humidity has fallen. This suggests that the area is drying even with steady or increasing amounts of rain.