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    no chill

    Beloved Houston TV weatherman predicts our future climate after September's sizzling temps

    Ken Hoffman
    Sep 26, 2022 | 3:08 pm
    thermometer heat hot sun

    What happened to this 'fall weather' we were promised, anyway.

    Photo by Getty Images

    Last week marked the beginning of fall. It was 103 ridiculous degrees in my backyard. Record highs were threatened and broken all week in Houston.

    I watched one local weather forecaster say that Sunday, September 25 would be the last really hot day this year, and cooler autumn temperatures would start on Monday, September 26.

    His predicted high temperature for Monday: 94 degrees. I wondered, are you listening to yourself?

    Enough already with the heat. So I put Channel 2’s chief meteorologist Frank Billingsley on the hot seat for some appropriate grilling. (Editor's note: Check out our article on Billingsley's Galveston beach home for sale here.)

    CultureMap: I'm a warm weather person. It's one reason I moved to Houston in the first place. But lately it's become an oven. Is all this hot weather a bad deal?

    Frank Billingsley: It's bad because it reaffirms that we are on a warming trajectory that we've been on for a couple of decades. Weather is all about temperature, water and air. We don't ever balance out the extreme heat and the extreme weather that goes with it.

    So, get used to more tornado outbreaks across the U.S., more extreme cold in winter, and heat in summer, stronger hurricanes, and more of those 500-year floods that seem to happen every year.

    CM: Does the extreme heat affect plant and crops' growing cycles?

    FB: I'm no farmer, but I've read that one advantage of the heat is that growing seasons are actually longer, which may be a good thing. However, farmers are having to deal with drought on one hand and flooding on the other.

    CM. Does the heat affect human mood?

    FB: I think relentless heat makes us a little snappier than pleasant weather.

    CM: Does it affect the economy?

    FB: With extreme weather comes extreme damage which costs more than ever to rebuild and recover.

    CM: Does it have an effect on our personal health?

    FB: Just last week, we had two days of ozone levels that were unhealthy for everyone. I hadn't seen that in a long while. But hot, clear, calm weather conditions set the stage for ozone to form. Ozone is hard on the upper respiratory system. That's just one example.

    Certainly heat stroke and heat exhaustion can be dangerous, and there is always that horrible case of a child left in a hot car. I also heard of several dogs that died this summer in the heat.

    CM: Historically, how certain has the Cone of Uncertainty been?

    FB: Two-thirds of hurricanes end up in the Cone of Uncertainty. One of my bosses used to call the Cone of Uncertainty the "Cone of Overtime" because if we were in that cone it meant a lot of photographers were going to earn a ton of overtime!

    CM: When a hurricane is approaching, which do you trust more, the American model or the European model?

    FB: In my experience, the American model has done better with forecasting storms and their eventual track. But, they usually catch up to each other by landfall and are in pretty good agreement.

    The European model made the headlines because in 2012 it was the first to forecast Hurricane Sandy curving back to the U.S., while the American model had the storm going northeast into the Atlantic.

    But that was 10 years ago. We have new American supercomputers and are pretty darn great.

    thermometer high temperature
      
    Photo by Getty Images
    What happened to this 'fall weather' we were promised, anyway.
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    park news

    Houston swings onto top 10 list of best Texas park systems

    Amber Heckler
    May 26, 2025 | 1:30 pm
    Buffalo Bayou Park Houston
    Courtesy of Houston First Corporation
    Buffalo Bayou Park is one of Houston's most popular parks.

    More bragging rights for Houston as a desirable place to live: The city has the No. 8 best park system in Texas this year, a new report says.

    The Trust for Public Land's 2025 ParkScore report annually rates park systems in 100 of the largest American cities based on accessibility, equity, acreage, investment, and amenities.

    Taking the top spot nationwide is Washington, D.C., for another consecutive year. Rounding out the top five cities with the best park systems are Irvine, California (No. 2); Minneapolis, Minnesota (No. 3); Cincinnati, Ohio (No. 4); and St. Paul, Minnesota (No. 5).

    Houston ranked 66th nationally for 2025 in a two-spot improvement after earning No. 68 last year.

    The city has an impressive amount of land dedicated to parks, totaling 43,139 acres, or about 12.2 percent of the total city area. The city invests $127 per resident on its acclaimed park system, compared to the national median $133 per resident.

    According to Trust for Public Land's website, Houston has more than 700 parks for locals and visitors to enjoy.

    “Parks bring people together and deliver enormous physical and mental health benefits for visitors,” said Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser, the president and CEO of Trust for Public Land. “At a time when so much in our nation seems fractured or polarized, parks may be the last ideology-free zones, where everyone can come together, form meaningful relationships, and enjoy a few hours of peace and relaxation."

    The city still has room for improvement when it comes to accessibility, according to the report. About 63 percent of all Houston residents live within a half mile of a park. Nationally, 76 percent of Americans in the 100 most populous cities live within a 10-minute walk of a park on average.

    Elsewhere in Texas
    Dallas-Fort Worth cities dominated Parkscore's list of the best park systems in Texas for 2025. Plano, a Dallas suburb, ranked No. 1 statewide and 17th nationally this year, followed by Dallas in second place and 34th nationally. Landing in the third and fourth spots statewide are Frisco (No. 37 nationally) and Arlington (No. 46).

    Austin rounded out the statewide top five and ranked 54th nationally, and San Antonio ranked behind Austin for No. 57 nationwide.

    Here's how other Texas parks ranked nationally in 2025:

    • No. 65 – El Paso
    • No. 67 – Garland
    • No. 72 – Fort Worth
    • No. 76 – Laredo
    • No. 77 – Corpus Christi
    • No. 94 – Lubbock
    • No. 99 – Irving
    parksparkscore reportbestslistssan antonio
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