Weather here in central Texas is and can be so variable. We made it through about 4 days of cold. And it was bitter cold for this area. One day we didn’t eve make it above freezing. One friend of mine that lives nearby had pipes freeze. They finally defrosted when we got above freezing.
On a previous post I posted an image of our drop when the cold front arrived. We dropped 20 degrees in a matter of hours. For this area, that was dramatic. The cold front arrived on Thursday 12/22 with that dramatic drop in temperature. By that evening, it was 15 degrees here at the house. At 2:30 AM we had hit a low of 13 (I had to let my dog out for a potty break so I checked). By Friday it was cold, not getting above freezing all day. Saturday (Christmas Eve) we got above freezing, up to 45 degrees. The nights were still cold, well below freezing, in the 20’s. Sunday, Christmas Day it was warming, but the night time temperatures were still below freezing.
This week, Monday we hit 63 here, and were on our way out of the cold. Today is Friday and our days and nights are safely out of the cold. But other areas will be digging out for longer. Some areas, NY for example, saw travel bans because of the storm. One area, Buffalo NY saw winds of 79 mph and got 22 inches of snow in one day. That meant with snow, cold and wind you have white out conditions, you were in a blizzard. In addition, lake effects brought their own issues. Some homes on Lake Erie saw the fronts covered in ice. Per CNN, “Tupling told CTV that the ice that accumulated on the Crystal Beach homes was at least a foot thick, and residents were concerned about damage due to the weight of the ice.” The pictures of it are pretty dramatic. When that melts it will bring new problems.
Some areas saw power outages, even here in Texas we had a few, though not many. But nationwide, there were about 2 million people dealing with outages. It takes times to get all that fixed.
But here a week later, central Texas is back to mild weather. Actually its seems a bit warm weather for this time of year – 60’s-70’s. But here I’ve lost a lot of plants. My arugula, bok choy, and peppers froze. My roses look like they area damaged, but my rosemary is probably dead. I haven’t yet uncovered the plants on the patio, that is today’s job. But I won’t be surprised if they are all a loss.
My concern is what is the new normal here in Texas. Is it these kinds of severe cold fronts? Will we have more come February? We’ll wait and see.
