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Record Snow in South Texas
Out front, mostly pristine snow
For those that live in the frozen tundra north of Waco, this may not seem much to you who get frozen precipitation on a regular basis, but
A few people went out, driving on powder snow is easy, but tomorrow is going to be a mess.
San Antonio last night dropped down to 9 degrees. That is the sixth time since records started being kept that the temperature dropped to single digits. Couple
that with some freezing rain the day before, and then between 3-6″ of snow depending on where one lived and we had quite the winter event. Today, for a number of reasons (wind turbines frozen up, decisions by ERCOT, and others) Texas has experienced rolling brownouts and some locations have no power at all and won’t for several days. It’s not like we have any equipment to deal with this down here, usually we just hunker down for a day and its gone by the afternoon. But, its not supposed to get above freezing until Wednesday and as I look out my window I see the streets is now slush and once the sun goes down its going to get nasty as it freezes solid.
The family (with Dog) in the Backyard
This is a culvert nearby.
The dog has had a blast, though she didn’t like doing her business too much. Watching her run through the snow with wild abandon was enough to warm any person’s heart. She bolted through the front door twice to galumph in the snow in the front of the house.
Published in General
What is unusual for South Texas and the hill country is when the daytime high stays below freezing. The recent rolling blackouts are a combination of utilities becoming addicted to fed subsidies for green energy and some really bad decisions by ERCOT about winterizing windmills and gas providers. Some heads will roll once the legislature is back in session but perverse incentives for green power will likely keep the leg from truly fixing the system.
Quite a bit of melting overnight and sure to be more today, but if the roads are as wet as I expect when the temps drop later we are in for real danger on the roads tomorrow. I’ve already been talking to our superintendent of schools about canceling the rest of week.
Not in the mountains. They know how to drive in snow.
One thing I wished they had taught us in driver’s ed was how to control the car in a skid. When I was a senior in high school, we had a week off of school due to heavy snowfall. Naturally, we took our cars to the school parking lot and started skidding around. Turns out it was great training for when we started skiing in the Carolina mountains . . .
Apparently not – at least not this time. Maybe they’ll learn something? Probably not. Sigh.
I’d be weeping too.
LOL! I see what you did there. :)
Actually, I might have started weeping if I’d had to go through another day of it. It was starting to get pretty discouraging, and I think that may have been a bit harder to deal with than the cold itself.
I’ve read lots of comments where the person is just incensed – angry that Cruz actually left the state rather than staying with them, angry that Texas isn’t well prepared for a storm that hasn’t happened in my lifetime, angry that Texas isn’t part of the national power grid even though they haven’t been since at least Roosevelt, or just angry.
I have to wonder if this is a consequence of the social media echo chamber, or the fault of the news media, or was this unrest always there, or what – in any case, I hope Rick Perry is correct.
Whatever you do, don’t blame the Democrats who control city government in Texas. Definitely don’t blame them for anything that went wrong. Everything is Republicans’ fault.