Space City Rewind: What the heck happened in March 1907?
Posted by Matt Lanza at 10:00 AM
As Eric noted on Monday, March was a remarkable month this year for how warm it was in Houston. But it was not quite like March 1907, which will remain atop the leaderboard for warmest March in Houston’s recorded history.
Three of Houston’s top 10 warmest Marches have occurred in the last four years. None could beat March of 1907. (NOAA)
Although we are in a warming climate, where warm records have tended to outnumber cold records by a 2:1 margin in recent years, when you look back at history, you will occasionally find some random, weird anomalous events. The month of March in 1907 ranks among them.
Houston in March 1907
Cast your mind back more than a century ago. In 1907 Houston was but a town, with roughly 60,000 residents. Whereas today Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, it was nowhere near the top 10 rankings of most populated cities of that era.
March 1907’s daily weather. The month started pretty warm and just kept going from there. (NOAA)
There was little about March 1907 that was cool in Houston. More than half of the month (16 days) saw low temperatures of 65° or warmer, a record for any March. Over the last 10 years, in a warm climate, in a much more robustly developed Houston, we have only averaged 6 to 7 mornings that warm in March. This year’s March is the closest to rival that since 1955, matching that year’s 14 days of not dropping below 65 degrees.
Houston only had one 90 degree day in March 1907, but the city recorded 15 days above 85 degrees that year, which is far and away the record for any March. The next closest are 1908 and 2017 when we accomplished that feat a mere 8 times. This year’s March only saw 5 days above 85 degrees.
