December 2024
Significant Weather Events:
December ended with several rounds of severe thunderstorms. The first of these occurred on Christmas Eve in Southeast Texas after a line of thunderstorms moved into the area by nightfall. An EF-0 tornado briefly touched down in Freestone County damaging two homes, thankfully no one was injured. In addition to this tornado, three reports of hail over two inches in diameter also occurred. After the Christmas Holiday another severe weather outbreak occurred on the evening of the 26th. A large thunderstorm system stretched from Northern Oklahoma south to the Houston area. As this system moved east, several damaging tornadoes touched down from Southeast Texas to Central Louisiana. These tornadoes ranged from an EF-0 to EF-1 resulting in no injuries or deaths. As this system continued to move east into Mississippi into the early hours of the 27th when several more tornadoes were confirmed in Southern Mississippi.
These damaging storms would quickly be overshadowed by the historic severe weather outbreak of December 28th. Storms started quickly that morning just west of Houston where the first tornado of the day would touchdown. An EF-1 tornado would touchdown in Katy, TX damaging several homes. As the storm moved northeast, the tornado would touchdown again in Montgomery County, this time as a strong EF-3 tornado with winds of 140 miles per hour. Throughout the day more tornadoes would continue to drop across Southeast Texas, Louisiana, Southeast Arkansas, and Mississippi. Many damaging tornadoes would come out of this day taking the lives of several people, injuring many more.
Temperature:
Monthly average temperatures across the Southern Region were above normal, from 9 degrees Fahrenheit in the Texas Panhandle to 3 degrees Fahrenheit in Eastern Tennessee and Southern Mississippi. December started out quite chilly, slowly warming up as the month progressed. By mid-month, temperatures were slightly above normal as weekly cold fronts struggled to cool things down. By Christmas week temperatures were unseasonably warm with high temperature records being set across the Southern Region. Finally, December ended with more seasonable temperatures into the new year. This all resulted in Decembers' average temperature for the Southern Region ranging from 40 to 62 degrees Fahrenheit in most places. The coldest monthly temperatures for December were found in the Great Smoky Mountains along the Tennessee-North Carolina border where temperatures were as cool as 36 degrees Fahrenheit.
Precipitation:
Precipitation totals were well below normal in the western Southern Region as many areas received little to no precipitation all month. Moving westward though, Central Texas to Central Oklahoma marks the boundary where the Southern Region starts to see normal and even above normal precipitation totals for December. Finally, in the far eastern portion of the region precipitation totals begin to fall just shy of the normal amount for December. Most of the rain that fell this December occurred during the severe weather before and after Christmas, bringing multiple low-pressure systems that made their way through the South. From December 22nd to 28th three to five inches of rain fell in many places throughout the Southern Region, with East-Central Texas into Northwest Louisiana receiving as much as eight inches. Overall, precipitation was concentrated in East Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Western Tennessee, where many areas received a minimum of eight inches of rain this month.
Drought:
December was cool and moderately wet in some areas of the Southern Region. Rainfall was concentrated in the eastern half of the Region, with the most rain falling in East Texas, Southern Arkansas, and Southern Mississippi. However, this was not the case for the Panhandle Region and West Texas as widespread degradation did not occur in this area. Small one-class degradation were observed in Central Texas though. Overall, the Southern Region experienced drought improvements concentrated where the most rain was seen. Widespread one-class improvements occurred in East Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Additionally, two-class improvements occurred embedded within these regions. Improvements in Arkansas resulted in just 9% of the state now experiencing drought, compared to 32% at the beginning of the month. At a regional level, drought also contracted nearly 10% from the beginning to end of the month. Drought severity did slightly increase with extreme to exceptional drought (D3 - D4) increasing about half a percent. This increase was specifically observed due to drought degradation in Central Tennessee.
According to the U.S. Monthly Drought Outlook for January, drought is expected to remain yet improve in Central Tennessee. Drought is expected to persist across most of the Region. Drought development is likely in areas of Deep South Texas and Central Texas. Finally, drought removal is likely along the Northern Tennessee border.