Dallas weather and climate guide

7-day forecast for Dallas

Tonight in Dallas, TX brings chance showers and thunderstorms. Across the 8-day outlook, highs average 87°F and lows average 72°F, ranging from 66°F to 97°F. 6 of the 8 days carry at least a 30% chance of precipitation, so keep rain gear handy.

Current conditions

Observed at Dallas Love Field (KDAL) at 9:50 PM CDT.

Summer: triple digits and a long season

July and August both average 96 °F, and the metro records around 20 days above 100 °F in a typical year — far more in a hot one. The summer of 2011 remains the benchmark, with 71 days at or above 100 °F including 40 consecutive. The all-time record is 113 °F.

Dew points run in the upper 60s to low 70s, so the humidity is real but not at Houston levels. The practical difference is that Dallas summer heat is closer to the boundary where the heat index and the air temperature diverge sharply: 100 °F with a 72 °F dew point gives a heat index near 110. Add the urban heat island of a large, low-density, heavily paved metro area and the effective exposure gets worse.

Late summer is typically the driest stretch, when high pressure parks overhead and suppresses convection. That combination — heat plus no rain — produces the flash droughts that stress the region's expansive clay soils. Foundation damage from soil shrinkage is a genuine and expensive North Texas problem, and watering foundations during drought is standard local practice rather than an eccentricity.

Hail is the region's most expensive weather

North Texas competes with the Colorado Front Range for the highest hail losses in the country, and Texas leads all states in total hail claims. The Fort Worth hailstorm of May 1995 — the Mayfest storm — dropped softball-sized hail on an outdoor festival crowd, injured over a hundred people and remains among the costliest hailstorms in United States history.

The mechanism is the same one that produces tornadoes here. Strong updrafts in supercell thunderstorms suspend hailstones aloft long enough for them to grow by repeated accretion. North Texas gets the combination of instability and shear needed for those updrafts several times each spring.

Practically, this means auto and roof insurance in the metro area is structured around hail. Covered parking is a meaningful amenity rather than a luxury, roof replacement cycles are shorter than the national norm, and it is worth knowing whether your policy pays replacement cost or depreciated value on a roof, because the difference is thousands of dollars.

Tornado risk in a very large metro

The peak season is April through June, with a secondary season in late October and November. North Texas is at the southern end of the traditional Tornado Alley and gets the classic Plains setup: Gulf moisture at low levels, a dry line to the west, strong wind shear aloft.

The metro area has been hit repeatedly. The Dallas–Fort Worth tornado outbreak of April 2012 produced multiple tornadoes that famously threw semi-trailers into the air in Lancaster. In December 2015, an EF4 struck Garland and Rowlett on the day after Christmas, killing ten people — a reminder that the secondary season is not a minor one. In October 2019, an EF3 tracked directly through north Dallas along Preston Road, causing extensive damage without any deaths, largely because it struck late on a Sunday evening when the commercial corridor it hit was mostly empty.

The metro's size cuts both ways. A given tornado is unlikely to hit any specific address, but the sheer footprint of the built-up area means tornadoes here strike populated ground more often than they would in rural Kansas. A large share of housing is single-family without basements, so the interior-room plan matters — and if you live in a manufactured home, the plan needs to be leaving it for a substantial structure before the storm arrives.

Winter ice, and the grid

Dallas winter is mild on average — January highs near 57 °F — but the region gets a handful of genuinely disruptive winter events each year, and they are usually ice rather than snow.

The setup is a shallow layer of cold air trapped near the surface beneath warmer air aloft. Precipitation falls as rain through the warm layer, then freezes on contact with subfreezing surfaces. A quarter inch of ice accretion is enough to make elevated highways impassable and to bring down tree limbs on power lines. Because DFW is built around freeways with extensive elevated interchanges, the ice hits exactly the infrastructure the region depends on most.

February 2021 was the extreme case. A polar vortex disruption sent temperatures into the single digits with sustained subfreezing conditions for days. The Texas grid, largely isolated from the national interconnections and with generation not winterized for that cold, came within minutes of an uncontrolled collapse. Millions lost power for days, water systems failed, and pipes burst across the metro. It is the reason many North Texas households now own generators and know how to shut off their water main.

Spring and fall are the good seasons

April and October are the two months when Dallas weather is genuinely excellent: highs in the 70s and low 80s, moderate humidity, long clear stretches. Both are also severe weather months, which is the trade-off — the same atmospheric setup that produces perfect afternoons produces supercells in the evening.

May is the wettest month, averaging around five inches, delivered largely by organized thunderstorm complexes that can drop two to four inches in a few hours. Flash flooding along the Trinity River tributaries and in the metro's paved creek basins is a routine May and June concern.

One practical local note: the Trinity River levee system protects downtown Dallas, and the floodway between the levees is designed to hold enormous volumes of water. When you see the floodway filled and the golf courses inside it underwater, that is the system working as intended rather than a crisis.

Weather hazards to know about

• Large hail

  March through June, peaking in May

  The costliest hazard in North Texas. Softball-sized stones have occurred, and roof and vehicle damage drives regional insurance costs.

• Tornadoes

  April through June, with a secondary season in late fall

  A large metro footprint in an active corridor. Most housing lacks basements, so an interior-room plan is essential.

• Extreme heat

  June through September

  Around 20 days above 100 °F in a normal year, with heat index values near 110 when Gulf moisture is present.

• Ice storms and hard freezes

  December through February

  Freezing rain on elevated freeways is the routine version. February 2021 showed the extreme version, including near-collapse of the state grid.

• Flash flooding

  April through June, and October

  Organized storm complexes drop two to four inches quickly onto paved creek basins that rise fast.

What to wear and pack, by season

Spring (March to May)

Light layers and a rain shell. Excellent weather punctuated by severe storms, so keep an eye on the forecast.

Summer (June to September)

The lightest clothing you have, plus sun protection. Indoor air conditioning is aggressive, so a light layer for interiors helps.

Fall (October to November)

The most reliable stretch of the year. Light layers, with a jacket by mid-November.

Winter (December to February)

A medium coat handles most days. Keep something warmer available, because North Texas cold snaps are sharp when they arrive.