Climate
Compared to the rest of the state, Southeast Texas's climate is warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. On average, the region is the wettest part of the state. The relatively mild and wet climate is largely due to the influence of the Gulf of Mexico. Average annual rainfall in the Golden Triangle is 60 inches (1500 mm). Rainfall totals in other parts of Southeast Texas are lower, but still in excess of 40 inches (1000 mm) per year. During Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979, the city of Alvin recorded an official 24-hour rainfall total of 42 inches (1067 mm) — the highest one-day rainfall total ever measured in the United States.
Houston has been called the "Lightning Capital of Texas," as it has a higher density of lightning strikes than the rest of the state. This area of unusually high lightning activity stretches from Houston eastward into Southwest Louisiana. Much of this can be explained by the natural occurrence of thunderstorms in the region, which form almost daily during the summer months. However, the unusual clustering of lightning around the developed areas of Houston, the Golden Triangle, and Lake Charles, Louisiana have led many researchers to believe that some combination of urban heat islands and air pollution are responsible for increasing the number of lightning strikes beyond their already high natural levels.
Southeast Texas is vulnerable to hurricanes, and has been struck and affected by major hurricanes like Hurricane Rita in 2005, and Hurricane Ike which passed over much of Houston and surrounding areas in 2008. Weaker storms strike the area routinely, and some, like Tropical Storm Allison and Tropical Storm Claudette, have caused considerable damage.
Read more about this topic: Southeast Texas
Famous quotes containing the word climate:
“The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The climate of Ohio is perfect, considered as the home of an ideal republican people. Climate has much to do with national character.... A climate which permits labor out-of-doors every month in the year and which requires industry to secure comfort—to provide food, shelter, clothing, fuel, etc.—is the very climate which secures the highest civilization.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The climate has been described as “ten months winter and two months mighty late in the fall.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)