Why the Big Country’s seasons barely change & what’s behind it

BIG COUNTRY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – You might have noticed the Big Country doesn’t always feel like it’s following the same seasonal script as the rest of the country. While fall and winter often bring cooler temperatures, it’s not the dramatic shift you’d see up north. Meteorologists Katalina and Carter are breaking down why that happens, and clearing up some common weather myths along the way.

“The Earth is closest to the Sun in July, which is why it’s summer.”

“This is false. So there’s the Sun and the Earth orbits the Sun, but that orbit is actually not circular. It’s like an oval. So obviously, wherever the Earth is in July, it’s actually further away from the sun. So when it comes back around and it gets a little bit closer, that’s when we get January. But it’s not about where it is in relation to the Sun,” Katalina explained.

“If you live on the equator, you don’t have a summer or a winter.”

“I know this is true, and it’s really sad because, like, what happens? ‘Like, I don’t know, I’m just a boy in Jamaica, and I’m just trying to get some Christmas gifts from Santa. Like, we don’t have a winter, sorry. So sad,'” Carter shared.

“El Niño winters in Texas are usually warmer and drier.”

“That’s not true. It’s actually cooler and wetter… And if the public doesn’t know, they’re probably going to say, yeah, it’s warmer and drier, but that’s actually La Nina,” Katalina said.

“In Australia, Christmas happens during the summer.”

“That is correct. That’s because our seasons are opposite in the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere,” Katalina shared. “So you’re in the northern hemisphere, here in North America, but once you get past the equator, you go to the southern hemisphere, and the seasons are completely different. So their summers are cooler and their winters are warm.”

Why Do the Seasons Change?

Carter said, like many things, it has to do with the tilt of the Earth and its rotation.

“We’re talking about the equator not having much change. It’s right there in the center, the tilt just, I mean, it’s the same as the rest of the earth. But it’s not at a breaking point where you’re saying, Oh, yeah, the northern hemisphere versus the southern hemisphere are changing. And they’re swapping the equator, still in the middle. It’s like it’s seeing the same amount for pretty much all year round,” Carter shared.

Why Don’t Temperatures Always Match the Seasons?

Katalina explained that this is due to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a natural climate pattern driven by ocean temperature changes in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. While these shifts typically occur over one to three years, she noted that recently, fluctuations have been happening from season to season.

“So we have El Niño, and that is when the Pacific Ocean waters are trending warmer. People can think like, Okay, the southern US is going to see warmer and drier conditions. Well, that’s actually not the case. It affects all types of things in our atmosphere, but it actually gives us cooler and wetter conditions in the southern portion of the United States, so places like Texas, all the Gulf Coast states, all the states heading towards California, but that leads to milder and drier conditions in the northern United States,” Katalina explained. “That all has to do with the jet stream. We have a jet stream that sits over the United States, and that affects how far south or north that jet stream sits over us, so it gives us the chance to have some cooler conditions in the United States.”

When the pattern flips to La Niña, the Big Country usually feels the opposite: warmer and drier weather that can worsen drought conditions.

“In the northern area, it tends to be cooler and wetter and maybe even a little bit more stormier. So that’s actually what we are transitioning to from the summer into now, this is what temperatures are likely to stay above average for, however long,” Katalina added.

And When ENSO Is Neutral?

“Anything can happen. You could go both ways, literally, like, just throw your hands up in the air. That’s a that’s a hard forecast, right there… that’s what we saw this summer,” Katalina said. “We saw cooler-than-average temperatures at one point, and then obviously we started transitioning, and that’s when things warmed up. We saw that the devastating floods down in the Hill Country were a pretty much 100-year flood. Unfortunately, it didn’t make a big impact in terms of how much rainfall we’re sitting at now, but it helped keep our drought away, which is now a problem for us yet again.”