But as blazingly hot as June 27, 2023, was in Dallas, it’s not the hottest day in Dallas history. That was June 27, 1980, 43 years ago today, when Dallas endured an all-time record 113 degree high temperature. The highest heat index for Tuesday is predicted to hit "only" 111 degrees, and on Wednesday, 112, so even those scorching metrics for this week can’t match what folks in town a generation ago endured.
Don’t get us wrong, it’s unbearable outside, regardless of what happened during the final months of the Carter administration. We don’t know if Dallas residents had to worry about the impending doom of the aforementioned heat dome way back then. We do know they didn’t have Twitter to gripe about ERCOT, so maybe that was worth the extra few degrees, depending on one's view of social media's value or lack thereof to society.
That 1980 record temp was set in the midst of a historic heat wave. Temperatures reached the century mark on more than 40 consecutive days and totaled almost 70 by the end of that year. The Dallas Morning News reported in 2010 that “the summer of 1980 broke or tied 29 daily records, 24 of which stand three decades later. The highest of those highs — the twin 113-degree readings on June 26 and 27 — are likely to stand for some time yet.”
The Morning News was right about that. The paper also reported that as the summer of '80 progressed, residents desperately took any chance they could to effect change, noting “On July 20, people performed a rain dance near the Turtle Creek fountain across from Lee Park in Dallas, asking those who couldn't attend to ‘concentrate their thoughts on thundershowers to provide enough energy to manifest a rainfall.’ For the record, it rained the next day — though not enough to break the heat wave.”
The 1980 heat wave wasn’t confined to North Texas. On June 27, 1980, Austin’s KVUE-TV news reported that the demand for power made a “definite dent” in the city’s electrical system. The reporter noted that the city used more than 800 megawatts of power two different days that week, surpassing the previous record set in 1978.
Nine years after the fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report on the 1980 heat wave, detailing just how historic the heat of that summer was.
“The heat wave of 1980, one of the worst in modern history in both magnitude and duration in Texas, was responsible for at least 60 deaths in the state, and nearly 1,300 deaths nationwide,” the report stated. “Heatwave fatalities far outnumbered fatalities from other weather phenomena.”
Forty-three years is a long time to look back on, even if the current heat makes it feel like only yesterday. June 27, 1980, was the day that Joy Division’s classic “Love Will Tear Us Apart” single was released, and The Empire Strikes Back was the top movie at the box office. The Iran hostage crisis was about halfway through its more than 400-day run when the temperatures were at their highest levels in Texas.
Of course, the summer of 1980 had the world thinking about the Big D. Millions of people spent the months between March and November that year wondering just who, exactly, shot J.R. Ewing.
For a nice dose of contemporary perspective, leave it to WFAA meteorologist Pete Delkus to set things straight on Twitter. He didn’t even have to go as far back as 1980 to give us reason to feel a little better about the oppressive heat of June 2023.
“Today we will add our 3rd 100° day,” he tweeted Tuesday. “Last year at this time, we already had NINE. It's not so bad if we think of it that way, right?”
Today we will add our 3rd 100° day. Last year at this time, we already had NINE.
— Pete Delkus (@wfaaweather) June 27, 2023
It's not so bad if we think of it that way, right?#wfaaweather pic.twitter.com/J3uRQ66zSS
