Another Incorrect Global Warming Story

I've always enjoyed visiting "Big D." I was there two years ago about this time to give a talk on storms at its Museum of Flight. But, its newspaper can be another matter when it comes to climate-related stories. 

The Dallas Morning News has published another global warming story; one in which the way the key topic of drying weather in the Metroplex, as presented, is provably wrong. 

They claim the following about Dallas' average temperature. 

They are correct. After falling from about 1924 to 1984, Dallas' temperatures began to rise after 1984 and have continued to rise since. 

Those of us who lived through the winters during the 1970's and early 80's (when the mid-century cooling reached its nadir) are grateful for the milder winters we have today. Still, the increasing temperatures in Dallas and across the world are a fact and they should be mitigated in an intelligent manner (a topic I've written about on many other occasions).

However, the point of the article is "drying" and the "dry line," the latter is a front separating dry air to the west of DFW from wetter Gulf air to the east. Here's the key issue with the story: Dallas is wetter these days, not drier!  

The trend is +.43 inches -- wetter -- per decade per official NOAA* figures.

As to weather stations to the west of Dallas, where the drier air originates, it is a mixed bag. 

Wichita Falls is wetter.

Abilene is also wetter. This is pretty good evidence there is no dry air crisis in the Metroplex.

You have to go all the way west to Midland County to find an upstream drying trend in a county which contains a first-order NWS weather station:

Even then, the drying is relatively modest, -.17 inches per decade. But, if one focuses on more recent times, since 1930, it has been a minor -.08 inches per decade. 

After misstating the trends in precipitation in Dallas and nearby to the west (where the dry line is created), the story goes on:

If it is getting wetter, there is no DFW water crisis due to climate. 

As to worsening tornadoes and other severe weather, there has never been an F-5 intensity tornado in the DFW Metroplex! The last F-5 in the giant State of Texas was nearly 30 years ago in Jarrell (which is north of Austin) on May 27, 1997. 

Hail? Because of so many variables such as:

• Storm chaser reports, which greatly increased starting in the mid-1990's
• Doppler radar
• Poor coverage of spotters prior to the 1960's.
• Inflation
• Rapid population increase in the DFW Metroplex

it is difficult to find a trend, either way. When I attempted an AI-based search, it referred me to climate change papers rather than actual data. As we know, climate change researchers gravitate toward computer simulations of the atmosphere rather than actual data (which I suspect is the source of the problem with the news story above). Almost every human being, myself included, suffers from "recency bias" -- where we believe what has happened to us personally in recent times -- is representative of a larger trend over a larger geographic area than our neighborhood. That is why it is difficult to scientifically determine the trend, if any, in DFW hail as there are a lot of "we have a lot more hailstorms these days" comments around.

It is highly unfortunate so many climate change stories are published without a thorough vetting of the facts. This type of reporting and hyping of climate change results in deserved skepticism pertaining to the entire topic of climate. News media: Please get your act together!

* Regardless of DOGE, this data is available and is consistently updated.