Freezing precipitation over the weekend made many secondary roads impassable and some driveways quite treacherous across the state.
Many power crews were also pre-positioned in anticipation of power lines going down from the weight of frozen rain and ice or brought down by the snapping of tree limbs. At last check, most outages are reported in far East Texas, but overall just over 60,000 residents without power.
But even with many government offices and schools shut down statewide, the biggest safety concern at the moment seems to be those roadways and dangerously cold temperatures.
Eric Berger, meteorologist and editor of Space City Weather, joined Texas Standard with a recap of the weekend’s weather. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: How’d this weekend’s shakeout compared to the forecast?
Eric Berger: The forecast was pretty on par. We expected to see freezing precipitation across a large part of the state.
I think some coastal areas, including Houston, kind of got lucky with what transpired and a lot of the rest of the state, like Dallas and the I-35 corridor, got pretty much what was expected – which was, to say, a mess.
I think that there was a lot of concern about the freeze line, where that might actually be, but it seems like it went pretty far south there.
Yeah this morning the entire state is below freezing, even right down in the water was 30 degrees.
There were some localized power outages, nothing too widespread that we saw, and no issues with the grid reported. Is this evidence that the power grid is back to where it needs to be, especially with a lot of memories about what happened five years ago?
Yeah, we’re just about five years ago from the Valentine’s storm of 2021. I would say that this air mass was not quite as cold as what we saw five years, but it was a good test.
I think the ice on the roadways also kind of presented more of a challenge this time around even than last time. And the grid held up really well. This morning was when we were expecting kind of the tightest crunch and the power grid came through with flying colors.
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
So perhaps it’s not a full-on test of how much has been done to fix the power grid, but at least you can say that the light stayed on for the most part with localized outages.
Yeah, that’s right, and we were also concerned about the distribution of energy when you get lots of ice on power lines that can weigh them down and cause them and limbs to snap. We just haven’t seen any evidence that really, across the stage. That’s been really helpful as well.
Of course, roads are very slippery in much of Texas right now. Temperatures in some areas will be going north of the freezing point, but perhaps we won’t get enough to melt all the ice.
At what point can we expect things to clear up – not refreeze? When do you believe we’ll be completely out of the woods?
So pretty much all the state on Tuesday afternoon, except the Panhandle, will be at 40 degrees. So basically, outside of a few areas in the Panhandle, I expect pretty much a return to normalcy by Tuesday afternoon.
I will say that there’s a chance for another freeze later this week with another front coming down. I don’t think it’s gonna be quite as impactful as this one, but winter is going to stick around for the rest of January and into February.
I want to drill down a bit more on what we can expect later in the week. When you say we could be in for more trouble later in the week, are we talking about frozen precipitation or are we talking about just temperatures being well below normal?
I’m hopeful that for most of the state, the precipitation moves through before the freezing air moves in, but it’s not something we can rule out. I don’t expect that sort of an ice storm of the magnitude that we’ve experienced though.
» RELATED: Here’s how Texans can stay prepared for winter storms and other disasters
So folks don’t need to be going to the DIY store and getting more ice and other things like that, stocking up on generators and all that. We’re not looking at a repeat of what people were prepared for this weekend.
No, I would say hold on to your supplies if you have any leftover and it’ll get through next weekend. But like I said, I don’t expect it to be as impactful as what we’ve just been through or are experiencing now.
