Water + Weather for March 2026

Transcript

Dr. Mark Wentzel - Hydrologist, Texas Water Development Board

Hi everyone, and welcome to the Texas Water Development Board's latest Water and Weather report. I'm Dr. Mark Wentzel, a hydrologist in the Surface Water Division here at the agency. And today, we'll be taking a look at conditions for our state at the end of March-and then, a deeper dive into monthly temperature records. Spoiler alert: I'm wearing a warm weather shirt for a reason.

But first, let's take a look at some of the big water and weather headlines. Statewide, March was drier and warmer than normal, a trend that has gripped the state for the last eight months. Near the end of March, 89 percent of the state was in drought, up nine percentage points since late February. That's the largest extent of drought in almost four years. Storage in our water supply reservoirs was 73.5 percent of capacity, down a tenth of a percentage point from the end of February, and nearly 10 percentage points below normal for this time of year. A modest decline in drought area is expected by the end of June.

Let's take a closer look at monthly temperature records for Texas. On this chart, the height of the bar shows the hottest average temperature for each month, from 1895 through 2025. The number at the top of the bar is the year that the record for that month was set. Note a couple of things about this data. First, no single year has a monopoly on monthly temperature records. Only two years have more than one monthly record. 1907 held the records for both hottest January and March, and 2011 holds the records for June and August. Also note that we've set a new monthly record every year since 2021. In 2021, we set the record for the hottest December. In 2022, it was the hottest July, hottest September in 2023, October in 2024, and November in 2025.

Let's take a closer look at March average temperatures. In this graph, we're looking at those values from 1895 on the left to 2025 on the right. The hottest March occurred in 1907, with an average temperature of 65.2 Fahrenheit. That was followed in 1915 by the coldest March, at 47.5 Fahrenheit. For the next hundred years, Texas' March temperatures remained between those two extremes.

And here's the same graph with the value for March 2026 added. Yep, we beat the record and not just a little. This year, March averaged 66.8 Fahrenheit, beating the previous record by more than one-and-a-half degrees. In addition to the record heat, March was also drier than normal. Since August 2025, we've now experienced a string of eight consecutive months of both warmer and drier-than-normal conditions.

What does the future hold? Well, there is some reason for optimism. April has started wetter and closer-to-normal temperatures for most of the state. And looking out through the end of June, the seasonal drought outlook shown in this graphic anticipates some drought expansion in the Panhandle and West Texas, but more drought contraction in Central and northeast Texas. That would be a step in the right direction. That concludes our report. Until next time, I hope you all stay healthy and safe.