Temperatures along a 30-mile stretch of the Rio Grande River in the southern tip of Texas saw a heat spike on Feb. 26, turning in the highest temperatures of the year so far nationwide.
In La Puerta, Texas, the high temperature reached a blistering 104 degrees on Feb. 26. That preliminary report, from an unofficial reporting station, popped up on the U.S. daily temperature extremes for Feb. 26, according toa social media postby the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center. (The low was a chilly minus 12 in Clarksburg, Michigan.)
But as preliminary reports continued to roll in from other cooperating stations, at least two other sites also reported reaching triple digits on Feb. 27, said Barry Goldsmith, a weather service meteorologist in the Brownsville office.
A site, at Falcon Lake, reported 104 degrees, said Victor Murphy, a retired weather service meteorologist.
And Goldsmith found a site in Rio Grande City reported reaching 102 degrees and a cooperative site at the Falcon Dam reached 106 degrees.
The temperatures were the first triple-digit readings – 100 degrees or above – reported in the United States in 2026, according to the weather prediction center.
If the preliminary 106 degrees at the Falcon Dam verifies, it could become officially the hottest temperature in recorded history for the nation for the three-month December to February period, Goldsmith said.
However, in the scramble among meteorologists to search weather service climate databases records to track down any earlier winter records of 104 degrees or more in the U.S., one higher temperature emerged from a site that isn't considered part of the official climate reporting network because it doesn't operate under the same specifications. The station in Falcon Lake had an unofficial report of 107 degrees on Feb. 23, 2017.
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Either way, it was a scorcher in southern Texas on Feb. 27, and is likely to enter the history books, one way or another.
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Texas sees a spate of warm records
Warmer-than-normal temperatures areexpected to continue in the Southwest and Southern Plainsfor a couple of days. The weather prediction center has warned numerous high temperature records could fall across the region though Sunday.
"There has been an upper ridge across northwest Mexico, extending into the Southwest and the Rio Grande, helping to keep temperatures above average," said Robert Oravec, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center.
A flurry of nearly a dozen daily warm maximum or warm overnight low temperature records were set or matched in the west on Feb. 26, including the following in Texas:
95 degrees in Corpus Christi topped previous daily record high by six degrees, breaking a record of 89 set in 1986.
103 degrees in Laredo broke a 98-degree daily record high set in 2024 by five degrees.
McAllen reached 99 degrees, breaking the previous daily record of 97, set in 1962.
The 95 degrees in San Antonio broke previous daily high records by 4 degrees. The previous record – 91 – was set in 1917 and 1954.
The daily record high of 89 degrees was tied in Victoria, Texas.
The warm temperatures also continue a pattern seen in southern Texas and parts of the west in recent weeks.
Oregon, California, Utah and Arizona all had one of their six warmest starts to the year on record, according to the National Center for Environmental Information with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Those states, plus Washington, Nevada and New Mexico, all saw their warmest December-January period on record. It was the second warmest December-January on record in Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming. The records for meteorological winter will be emerging in early March.
Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, covers climate change, weather, the environment and other news. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Texas' triple-digit temperatures in February mark a milestone for US