Historic Weather Event Underway

It's rare that I look at weather events outside of the New England on this blog, but what is happening in southern parts of the country is truly remarkable and worth taking a deeper look at.

Temperatures

First, take a look at current air temperatures this morning.

(Mesonet)

Yes, you're seeing temperatures ten below zero in Texas this morning! And temperatures approaching 40 °F below 0 is dangerously cold. To understand how remarkable this arctic blast is, take a look at all the stations that have broken all-time or February low temperature records so far:

(Coolwx)

And to understand what these temperatures mean compared to normal, take a look at the current 2-m temperature anomaly analysis from the GFS:

(Tropical Tidbits)

It looks like temperatures in spots are approaching 30 °F below normal, and almost breaking the map's colorbar!

Snowfall

What's especially fascinating to me is the snow that has fallen for virtually all of Texas. Here is a NWS snowfall report map for the past 48 hours, showing accumulating snowfall in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio!

(NWS)

Impacts

Many locations that are experiencing this bast of arctic air and unusual snowfall are simply unprepared to deal with it. Here is a look at I-10 in San Antonio, showing a snow-covered road with no cars.

(WeatherBug)

Travel will be impacted for days in some areas. To compound things, frozen wind turbines have impacted Texas' electrical grid, and increased demand has caused blackouts.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and we can only hope for safety for all.