Soupy Season: How Much More Humid Was North Texas This Summer?

One hundred-degree days were few and far between in North Texas this summer, contrary to the sizzling forecast in the Old Farmer’s Almanac that seemed to spell doom earlier this year.

It took until July 29 for Dallas to record its first triple-digit day this summer, a whole month later than when 2022, 2023 and 2024 saw their first 100-degree days. Since then, there’s been a mere smattering of heat spikes — nothing like the traumatizing summer of 2023 that saw 55 days over 100 degrees, and 90s sticking around through late October.

Still, though, this summer didn’t exactly feel cool. We may not have roasted, but it sometimes felt like Dallas was stuck inside a steam cooker. That’s because Big D is part of the country that saw record-setting humidity levels this summer.

2025 was one of the most humid summers North Texas has seen since 1981, the Washington Post reports. Dallas County is now seeing a week’s worth of extremely humid days compared to 45 years ago. “Extremely humid” is defined as having a maximum dew point at or above 75 degrees. (Dew point is the measurement that best translates to humidity.)

Dallas County recorded 25 extremely humid days in 2025, the third most since 1981. The current record-holder is 2019, which saw 32 extremely humid days.

When you Google what a 75-degree dew point actually means, the first words that come up are “oppressive” and “miserable.” Sounds about right to us. Seventy-degree dew point days, of which Dallas has seen about 61 so far this year, are where things start to feel uncomfortable. The closer the dew point gets to 90, the smaller your will to live becomes.

High humidity levels, like those recorded in Dallas this summer, make the temperature feel hotter than it actually is because it reduces the body’s ability to cool down by sweating. And if you’re hoping that maybe 2025 was just an especially moist summer, we have some bad news for you.

“I would expect that over the next generation or two, high summer dew points like we experienced this summer will become more and more common and will be even higher when they occur,” Jacob Scheff, a professor with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who wrote a paper on humidity trends, told the Washington Post. “Simply because we expect greenhouse gases to keep warming up the air and oceans worldwide, and warmer air can hold more water vapor.”

So like it or not, the summer’s sensation of being stuck inside a person’s armpit might be here to stay. Compared to other parts of Texas, though, Dallas has managed to get out okay.

Across the United States, the Washington Post reports that the Gulf Coast region has been most affected by increasing mugginess levels because of the warming seas. The number of extremely humid days in Houston has increased from 57 to 70 over the last few decades, which is outrageous even considering the town’s soupy reputation.

Humidity is trending up by record amounts pretty much everywhere across the Gulf States and the East Coast. If dry heat is more your speed, you can still do as Doc Holliday (and thousands of tuberculosis patients) did.

Head out West. You’re sure to sizzle, but isn’t that at least a little better than being steamed?