Texoma summer turns dry after Gainesville's soaked June

Gainesville caught about a tenth of an inch of rain in August, a small fraction of a normal month, after a drenched June, National Weather Service records show. The weather service's September drought update favors drought holding on across North and Central Texas for the rest of the warm season.

Elsewhere in Texoma, Sherman fared little better, logging roughly a quarter inch in August. Both cities also finished July below normal, according to the agency's records for Sherman and Gainesville.

June ran the other way. Gainesville took in more than twice its usual June rainfall. That early surplus kept the city's three-month summer total above normal, according to a GvilleTX Newsroom tally of the monthly figures. The same tally puts Sherman's summer below normal. Gainesville's station figures do not show a summer rain shortage near record levels.

Both cities stayed well ahead of the summer of 2011. That year, Gainesville measured less than 2 inches from June through August, and Sherman measured less than 1 inch. Gainesville's records list zero rainfall for August 2000.

Rainfall in inches, from National Weather Service station records. Normals cover 1991–2020. Summer totals add the June, July and August figures.

| Station | Period | Rainfall | Normal |

|---|---|---:|---:|

| Gainesville | June 2026 | 9.75 | 4.64 |

| Gainesville | July 2026 | 2.69 | 2.91 |

| Gainesville | August 2026 | 0.11 | 2.83 |

| Gainesville | Summer 2026 | 12.55 | 10.38 |

| Gainesville | Summer 2011 | 1.69 | 10.38 |

| Sherman | July 2026 | 1.75 | 2.90 |

| Sherman | August 2026 | 0.25 | 2.88 |

| Sherman | Summer 2026 | 8.25 | 10.32 |

| Sherman | Summer 2011 | 0.82 | 10.32 |

NOAA explains how a wet start can turn dry fast. Sometimes rain falls short during a spell of unusual heat, wind or strong sun. Then soil and plants lose water quickly, and drought can set in rapidly. The agency calls this flash drought.

In its September update, the weather service said long spells of heat and dry weather had undone much of the recovery North and Central Texas made during an exceptionally wet late spring and early summer. Moderate drought had spread widely, the agency said, and severe drought had returned to parts of North Texas. The U.S. Drought Monitor assessment valid Sept. 15 reported flash drought across much of Texas and into the Arkansas–Louisiana–Texas border region.

As of Sept. 5, Dallas–Fort Worth had gone more than seven weeks without measurable rain, the weather service reported. That tied the area's seventh-longest such streak on record. The weather service also reported a recent 42-day dry streak in Waco.

Nationally, NOAA ranked June through August as the hottest summer for the contiguous United States in its 132-year record. The summer passed the old records from 1936 and 2021. Rainfall across the country ran slightly below the 20th-century average.

El Niño tends to bring wetter conditions, the weather service noted. That influence usually counts for more later in the fall, and most of all in winter.

The 2026 Region C Water Plan lists October 2010 through May 2015 as the drought of record for Lake Texoma. For Moss Lake, the plan lists April 2010 through May 2015. According to the plan, both lakes reached their lowest content in February 2015.