2024: Hottest on record for RGV
Will 2025 be just as hot or hotter than 2024?
If you want to make a bet one way or another, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry might be your go-to guy since he’s been pushing for legalized gambling (in casinos, at racetracks, and online) in the Lone Star State since late 2022 when he became spokesman for the Texas Sports Betting Alliance.
To legalize gambling in Texas, a constitutional amendment is required, which needs a two-thirds vote to approve in both the state House and Senate before it would go before state voters this November.
Perry was hired as spokesman for the Alliance in November 2022. How much he’s getting paid isn’t easy to find in this age of transparency.
As Texas governor between 2000 and 2015, Perry opposed legalized gambling, but, well, things change.
Las Vegas Sands casino and resort developers, for one, have been part of the big push in recent years to get gambling made legal by hiring lobbyists, placing ads, dropping campaign cash into the laps of those elected to state office who support their cause.
Two years ago, Rick Perry said, “We know that Texans want the freedom and liberty that our great state is known for, to participate in sports betting legally and safely. We listened to the people and put forth legislation that would combat the $6 billion illegal market with common sense regulation and protect Texans without growing the size and scope of government.”
This is reminiscent, opponents have said, of the push to legalize the state lottery when Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment in November 1991. Part of the argument made for its passage back then was, the lottery money will go toward fixing/ funding the state’s education system.
Like the state lottery, some of the stakeholders advocating for legalized gambling in Texas have said part of any tax generated that boosts state income will go toward funding education.
At the time, 1991, and still today, critics called it a “Regressive Tax,” saying that the lottery, and by extension, casinos (hello, goodbye, Edcouch), disproportionately impacts lower-income individuals who are more likely to play, while being less likely to afford to lose in an arena where the house always wins, once all the money is counted.
Record Heat
Switching from gambling to the weather — “Bet you 10 bucks this summer will be hotter” — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a report last week, which said that the Rio Grande Valley experienced its hottest year on record in 2024. (Dating all the way back to the late 1800s.)
Last year’s average beat the previous record set in 2023, with an average of 76.9 degrees.
According to a report released last year by Texas A&M, Texans can expect more 100-degree days and longer wildfire seasons in the coming years.
“I’ll bet you they’re wrong.”
Rising temperatures will also exacerbate severe weather conditions from droughts to strong rainstorms and flooding.
State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon used historic weather data to forecast climate trends through 2036 — the year Texas turns 200 — and beyond. The April 22, 2023 report is an update to information released in 2021.
In 2036, average temperatures in Texas are expected to be 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than averages from 1991-2020, researchers predict.
Which may not sound so bad next Tuesday evening with a forecast low of 33 degrees and a 50-percent chance of rain?