Happy New Year, Houston Historic Retail Readers! Today, we’re going to take a moment to reflect on 2025. Hopefully, this past year went well for you. It was a good one for HHR. Readership of the website has remained steady, with occasional spikes and dips in blog views, but traffic has been sustained via Google and link building. The HHR Facebook account has been highly active over the past year, recently reaching 14,000 followers and ...
In brief: In today’s post we take a look back at the year in weather for 2025, which had few major stories. The notable exception was a winter storm back in January. There was also a hidden, but significant story as well. We also take a look ahead to a stand-out weekend and warmer weather for much of next week.
A look back at 2025
In some ways, last year was one of the quietest in recent history weather-wise for Houston. The most notable event occurred in January, with a hard freeze and widespread snowfall. Do you remember the snow? Many locations picked up 3 to 5 inches, and following this low temperatures dropped into the upper teens.
Snows makes the Heights looks peaceful. (James Michael Carlen)
But after this January winter storm Houston’s weather turned tranquil. We made it through spring without major, widespread storms or flooding. All summer we experienced nary a tropical storm in the Gulf. Laughably, the only “threat” was conjured up on social media in July, when some non-meteorologists were energetically warning Houston that a hurricane was on the way. (It was not). Fall came and went with mostly calm weather as well, aside from a few tornadoes. Winter, to date, has been fairly mild. When you add it all up, it was a quiet year, especially after January. We see that in our website traffic. We average about 10 million page views a year on Space City Weather, and we were down by about 30 percent this year. I’m not complaining, I don’t like scary weather that threatens my home and family, either.
In one way, however, the weather in 2025 was extreme.
I am speaking about temperatures. I went ahead and plotted the average annual temperature in Houston dating back to 1969, when the official monitoring station was first moved to Bush Intercontinental Airport. It turns out this year’s average temperature of 73.0 degrees was the second hottest in the nearly six decades of records there. It was exceeded only by the mark of 73.1 degrees in 2024. In fact, the last three years have recorded the three hottest annual average temperatures at the airport since its opening in 1969.
Average annual temperature in Houston, measured at Bush Intercontinental Airport, since 1969. The black line is a moving, five-year average. (NOAA)
One of the things that stands out on this graphic is that the annual average temperature in the 1970s was nearly five degrees lower. Now global temperatures have not risen that quickly, and it is not possible to say how much of the warming observed at Bush airport is due to climate change. Some is very likely due to urbanization around the airport. But a significant chunk is clearly due to a warming planet, as similar trends have occurred elsewhere, including Galveston Island. There is no question that Houston is quite a bit hotter now than it was half a century ago. Even a decade ago, for that matter. That is the hidden extreme from last year.
Friday
Speaking of heat, today will bring it. Highs will crest in the low 80s, maybe even mid-80s for some locations, thanks to a warm southerly flow ahead of our next front. Winds will be gusty, from the south up to 25 mph. The record high temperature for today is 81 degrees, and I’m fairly confident we’ll strike above that comfortably. In any case, we will be about 20 degrees warmer today than is customary for early January. The warmth will be goosed by mostly sunny skies. Lows tonight will only drop to about 60 degrees, before cooler and drier air arrives on Saturday morning.
Sunday morning will be the coolest of the weekend. (Weather Bell)
Saturday and Sunday
The weekend won’t feel much like January typically feels in Houston, but it’s going to be gorgeous all the same. We should have wall-to-wall sunshine, and lower humidity. Saturday morning will be a bit windy, with northerly winds up to about 20 mph. But they should back down during the afternoon. Highs on Saturday will be in the upper 70s, with lows on Saturday night dropping to around 50 degrees. Sunday will be splendid and sunny, with highs around 70 degrees. We’ll have another night with lows around 50 degrees on Sunday night.
Temperatures on Tuesday will be 20 to 30 degrees above normal for the central United States. (Weather Bell)
Next week
Much of next week looks warm for January as a ridge high pressure builds over the central United States. Monday probably will not reach the 80s, but most of the rest of the week will be in the vicinity. Skies will be mostly sunny during the daytime, and with dewpoints in the low 60s it will feel moderately humid. Nights will be mild. At some point a stronger front will push into the region later next week, probably late on Friday or Saturday. I don’t have much confidence yet in the details, but there could be a modest splash of rain with the front, perhaps on the order of one-half inch. For many parts of Houston there has not been significant rain in nearly four weeks, so anything would be welcome.
As for my runners, let’s hope that front makes it in time for the Houston Marathon on Sunday. I’m about 75 percent confident that it will, and we’ll have start-line temperatures in the upper 40s to lower 50s, with drier air. But there are risks. One is that the front is delayed, in which case we’ll be quite a bit warmer and muggier. Another is that the front comes through just before the run, and we see some lingering showers. Overall, I’m hopeful about race-day conditions, but not confident yet.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. I’m going to be outside a lot, soaking in this great weather.
OTTAWA – This morning, in an unscheduled press statement, the Prime Minister’s Office has said that Prime Minister Mark Carney has turned off geolocation services for all his electronic devices “for no particular reason whatsoever”. “This is just a normal, everyday, temporary precaution the Prime Minister is taking to avoid unwanted public or perhaps presidential […]
OTTAWA – Canadian Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre was reportedly seen lighting emergency flares, in hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump would “liberate” Canada in the same fashion that he has done with Venezuela. “Please, Mr. Trump! Depose the tyrannical Mark Carney in the way I utterly failed to do,” shouted Poilievre as he held aloft […]
LOS ANGELES—Addressing the show’s hotly anticipated finale at a press event this week, Stranger Things co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer admitted to reporters that they haven’t watched the series in years. “We got through most of the first season, mostly because of all the buzz it was getting, but after that we really fell off,” Matt Duffer said as his brother nodded and cited long wait times between new episodes, baffling plot holes, and frequent pacing issues among the reasons they stopped tuning in. “Some of the stuff with the bald girl—Thirteen or whatever—was kind of cool. I think she’s supposed to be some kind of space alien. But as soon as those stupid demo-monsters appeared, the show completely lost us. By the third season, it felt like they’d totally abandoned any meaningful character development. It just became this surface-level ’80s nostalgia fest. Which is fine if that’s your thing, but it’s not for us.” The brothers went on to express surprise that Stranger Things ever got a second season, let alone a fifth one.
Cameron Winter, the Geese frontman who made his solo debut with the LP Heavy Metal, has been hailed by fans as a Gen Z Leonard Cohen. The Onion shares everything you need to know about the artist.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney has vowed that 2026 will see huge economic growth for Canada’s GDP, manufacturing, and exports, none of which will redound to you in the slightest. Despite challenging economic trends in the previous year, Carney has forecasted that Canada’s economy will modestly outperform expectations in for sectors like Asian exporters, […]
WATERLOO, ON – A local allegedly grand piano has been revealed to just be fine. Owner Marsha Jameson made the discovery this past week after sitting down to play the instrument for her first time since last Christmas. “I was just starting to bust out one of the four songs in my repertoire, Jingle Bells, […]
The site has had a minor spruce-up for 2026. NEMS parts 2&3 and Savage Sword of Susan have been moved to the story archive – you can find them in the menu at the top of the page (under “my old comics”), or on the Scary Go Round site where you can also find Bad Machinery, Kit + The Wolf, Giant Days (Self-Published) and more! I’ll add It’s The Nineties, Get Used To It to this archive when I get chance.
The plan for this year is twelve months of Solver, so it’s time for the old masthead (knocked up in ten minutes nearly five years ago, IIRC) to go. I hope you like the new one. Mildred must feature, of course – she got two whole issues of Solver, after all, and can always return to stir up trouble when she’s needed.
Happy new year! After a seven-month break, Solver returns on Monday for what I hope will be a full year of adventures. My first job is to complete and publish volume 2, with the Wobbly Head saga making up the first portion, and three single-issue (but connected) adventures rounding it out. The first one, LITTLE DAYS, starts on Monday.
The whole issue will be downloadable in PDF format for my Patreon subscribers on Sunday. And as a new year begins, I’d like to thank all those subscribers. Your support keeps this comic running; without you, I am not sure it would be. I am immensely grateful.
Each January, millions of Americans vow to improve something about themselves, but many struggle with the commitments they make. Here are tips for sticking to your New Year’s resolutions.
Hire a hitman to shoot you in between the eyes if you even so much as look at a cigarette.
Tell your coworkers about your plan so they can inevitably mock you when you fail to live up to your resolution.
If you resolved to give up junk food for a month, petition the U.S. government to make January three days long.
Choose an attainable resolution that you’ve already completed prior to starting.
Be realistic about how many coconuts you can crack open with your head in under 10 minutes.
Remember that if you and the rebel forces don’t succeed, Selassie’s iron grip on Ethiopia may never loosen.
Convince yourself your New Year’s resolution was always to fall into the deep, dark hole of “day in the life of an age-gap couple” vlogs.
Make small, daily progress on your resolution to help ensure that you recoup the cost of Megalopolis to investors by 2026.
If you’re having trouble sticking with a goal as simple as “eat more protein,” we’re not quite sure how we can help you.
Explore the works that have entered the public domain in 2026, below.
On January 1, 2026, we celebrate published works from 1930 and published sound recordings from 1925 entering the public domain! Their arrival marks another chapter in our shared cultural heritage: the freedom to breathe new life into overlooked works, remix enduring classics, and circulate the oddities we discover in thrift stores, family attics, and forgotten corners of the internet.
For the first time since the 1970s, works from a new decade have entered the public domain after their long copyright term. This milestone builds on the momentum that began when the public domain reopened in 2019. The works of 1930 reflect a world grappling with enormous change: the early years of the Great Depression, anxieties about banks and tariffs (sound familiar?), and a cultural landscape still humming with the last heartbeats of the 1920s.
The Jazz Age and flapper style persisted through Nancy Drew’s illustrations and Betty Boop’s design; Buster Keaton’s first talkie signaled the twilight of the silent era; and the Gershwins continued to shake-up musical culture with “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You”. The Interwar period left its mark, too—the first filmed adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front won Best Picture. Audiences sought escapism in the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers, in 19 new Disney cartoons, and in the gender-bending glamour of the pre-Hays Code film Morocco.
Culture was everywhere—and now, it belongs to everyone.
Musical Compositions
1930 saw the introduction of many standards into the Great American Songbook including the wistful “Dream A Little Dream of Me”, “Georgia on My Mind”, and “It Happened in Monterey”. The latter of those songs being a cultural curiosity as the spelling reflects the California city while the song is about the Mexican city. Hoagy Charmichael’s loving refrain for the state of Georgia with Georgia on My Mind would become the state’s official song in 1979.
Even inspiration for later 20th Century works bubbled up with “Beyond the Blue Horizon” which would serve as inspiration for the original Star Trek theme. At the Internet Archive the song reminds us of the blinking blue lights that help to power the 1 Trillion webpages saved.
Check out this list of more musical compositions from the year.
On the Sunny Side of the Street lyrics by Dorothy Fields, music by Jimmy McHugh
Just A Gigolo (first English translation), original German lyrics by Julius Brammer, English translation by Irving Caesar, music by Leonello Casucci
If we thought that detectives had a field day in 1929 then we just hadn’t seen what 1930 had to offer yet. Miss Marple, Nancy Drew, Harriet Vane, and Sam Spade all featured in iconic works of the year respectively: The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie, The Secret of the Old Clock, Strong Poison, and the published novel edition of The Maltese Falcon. Nancy Drew appeared in four different stories this year giving readers and creatives plenty of stories and mysteries to dig into. But be careful and make sure you’re reading the original editions from 1930 and not the rewrites from the late 1950s. Luckily the Archive has the 1930 editions ready for you here in our collections!
While detective fiction dominated we also got bold works from other authors including As I Lay Dyingby William Faulkner which blends multiple perspectives and bold narrative experimentation to chronicle a family’s turbulent journey to honor their mother’s final request. Groundwork was also laid for another Best Picture winner with Edna Farber’s Cimarron. Children had works to entertain themselves with Dick and Jane’s introduction in Elson Basic Readers and a 1930 retelling of the folktale, The Little Engine That Could.
Dive into Archive’s literary collection to unearth more classics from 1930.
Film
A favorite film of this author is the King of Jazz, astunning Technicolor musical revue featuring Paul Whiteman, Bing Crosby, and elaborate song and dance numbers.
It wasn’t the only musical of the year as the Marx Brothers adapted their stage show Animal Crackersto the big screen in a film of the same name. Their comedic antics would absurdly riff on the culture of the time with Groucho directly parodying a monologue from Eugene O’Neill’s 1928 play, Strange Interlude.
While past the heyday of his filmic output, Buster Keaton was still on the scene with his first talkie, Free and Easy, entering the public domain this year. If you’ve never heard his voice before then it might surprise you! Another iconic comedy is Soup to Nuts, a vehicle for Rube Goldberg to share crazy contraptions on screen. It was also the debut of actors that would form The Three Stooges group a few years later.
In another reminder of how copyright expires on a yearly basis we’re talking about All Quiet on the Western Front for the third year in a row, but this time as the adaptation that won the 3rd Academy Award for Best Picture. The film is a sobering reminder and depiction of the horrors of war, and showcased how audiences in 1930 were still reeling from the first World War. It is also a very engaging and well rounded film that is still great cinema nearly 100 years later.
Even more icons made headway in 1930 with Alfred Hitchcock’s Murder!, John Wayne’s first leading role in The Big Trail, and Greta Garbo’s moving performance in Anna Christie.
Our film remix contest is ongoing until January 7, 2026, so please upload your submissions! Read more here.
Comics and Cartoons
Only a year removed from the 1920s, culture didn’t change overnight. Debuting on September 8, 1930, the Blondie comic strip by Chic Young was steeped in flapper style. Originally named Blondie Boopadoop, she drew on the singing persona of Helen Kane—who also inspired aspects of Betty Boop. For more on Betty Boop, read Jennifer Jenkins’ write-up at Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
Mickey Mouse expanded from the screen to the page with 303 daily comic strips, sending him on western adventures, robber-chasing escapades, and more.
In 2026, we now have another 19 Disney shorts (9 Mickey, 10 Silly Symphonies) to help fill out this creative world. The Silly Symphonies rounded out their celebration of the seasons by following up 1929’s Springtime with Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
Meanwhile, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit—Mickey’s older brother—continued his prolific output even after Disney lost the rights to him in 1928. Under Walter Lantz, Oswald starred in 24 shorts this year, nearly 2.5 times Mickey’s total. Two of these, My Pal Paul and Africa, cross-promoted the film King of Jazz, proving that cinematic tie-ins have long been part of studio strategy.
Recap
The arrival of these works into the public domain is a reminder of our shared cultural heritage—of the stories, sounds, and images that shaped earlier generations and now become fair game for creative reuse. Many of these works have already been reimagined under copyright: Nancy Drew’s rewrites, the many adaptations of All Quiet on the Western Front, Mickey Mouse’s leap into comics, and more.
Now, in 2026, these works pass into a space where everyone can study them, remix them, preserve them, and carry them forward.
The public domain belongs to all of us. Let’s explore it together.
![[img]:trilio](https://analognowhere.com/_/trilio/trilio.png)