Heat burst sends temperatures spiking into the 90s in the middle of the night

Jesse Ferrell
·1-min read

An unusual weather phenomenon happened in the middle of the night around Lubbock, Texas. Temperatures, which had fallen into the lower 70s F at 3:30 a.m. CDT, suddenly spiked into the lower 90s in less than an hour.

An AccuWeather / Ambient Weather station nearby in Idalou, Texas, recorded the dramatic increase, jumping from 65 degrees to 88 degrees in less than 60 minutes.

Temperature graph from an AccuWeather / Ambient Weather station nearby in Idalou, Texas, between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. local time on June 7, 2024.

Temperature graph from an AccuWeather / Ambient Weather station nearby in Idalou, Texas, between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. local time on June 7, 2024.

The phenomenon is known as a "heat burst" and typically occurs at night when a dying thunderstorm's downdraft dries out and warms up, creating a blast of hot air with high winds.

Unofficial historical weather records show heat bursts causing temperatures to spike as much as 40 degrees in as little as 10 minutes. In one instance in 2023, a heat burst in Amarillo caused temperatures to spike from 74 to 90 degrees in 7 minutes, with wind gusts to 89 mph.

AccuWeather has partnered with Ambient Weather on a landmark collaboration in the field of hyperlocal weather reporting, with the densest network of over 100,000 private weather stations across the country that are now utilized as a key source of AccuWeather's ground truth data, providing data and insights into hyper-local weather conditions on the ground, such as this event. Get your weather station today.

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