Once I gave up the marketing illusion of a semi-tropical southern Texas at half the rate of a true semi-tropical location
....it helps to first throw out terminology not used to describe climate zones: "semi-tropical" is purely a marketing invention, helped along because it is used so often by the unknowing masses, and somehow the term becomes adopted, wrongly, to describe some part of the tropics.
The real tropic belts are only two: 1) subtropics; and 2) tropics. Nothing more, nothing less. South Texas falls inside the subtropics zone, having its northern boundary at approximately the 38th parallel (just about at Wichita, Kansas), and its southern boundary at about 23.45° Lat (near Mazatlan, Mexico). So, Brownsville, TX (RGV) is a mere ~157 miles from the north boundary of the "tropics", and ~828 miles (!!!) from the north boundary of the "subtropics". So, this would place the RGV at the near extreme south end of the subtropics, very, very close the the "tropics" northern frontier. Additionally, the subtropics is divided into 3 zones (none of them called semi-tropical!). The RGV is called a savannah climate regime, replete with a monsoon season. The subtropics is defined by a high and low temperature ceiling; the low basement (in the Northern Hemisphere) are temperatures ranging from 35°F and 55°F...sounds cold yes? You bet it is! The most miserable temperature ranges for the human body are between about 25F and 55F, especially when the (RH) humidity is in the 80%+ range (as it is in the south regions of the subtropics!).
I think there are some snowbirds who would perhaps find it more comfortable in the "tropics" south of Mazatlan, Mexico? There really isn't much geographic space between the RGV and the line demarcating the tropics: only 157 miles! This would in fact place the RGV in the
really southern geographical sector of the subtropics, by every climatological measure out there.
...that's it for today folks :B
