Tag: winter

Worst Week of Winter Weather. Ever.

Posted on | by C. | Leave a Comment on Worst Week of Winter Weather. Ever.

I’ve lived in this area for 25 years, and I’ve watched the weather change over that time, but I have never seen weather like this, last this long. For a solid 7 days temperatures have not gotten above 40 F. (Thursday 2/11 high was 37 F.) We had rolling power outages on Sunday (2/14) and Monday. We got every kind of precipitation – rain, sleet, freezing rain, and snow. The lowest temperature was 5 F Tuesday morning.

Fortunately for us, we were prepared. We saw the signs and listened to the forecast, and we ordered grocery pickup on Saturday (2/13) before the food ran out and the bad weather hit. By Monday, HEB was the only place open.

I camped-out in my living room Sunday – Thursday, tending dripping faucets, watching tree limbs sag, turning on heaters when the power came back on. Texas A&M cancelled classes and work for non-essential employees Monday – Thursday. “Warm up shelters” (that’s new) were setup Tuesday – Thursday at local arenas.

Texas Winter Drought 2010-11 from La Niña

Posted on | by C. | Leave a Comment on Texas Winter Drought 2010-11 from La Niña

Back in July of 2009 I wrote about how one of the worst droughts in Texas was worsening.

Now it’s December, 2010, and we are staring down the barrel of another (winter) drought – one of the worst.

The U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday indicated 85 percent of Texas is between abnormally dry and in extreme drought, compared to about 29 percent a year ago. Source: KBTX.com | Experts Fear Texas Heading Into Another Severe Drought

I appears to be the effects of La Niña.

La Niña causes mostly the opposite effects of El Niño. La Niña causes above average precipitation across the North Midwest, the Northern Rockies, Northern California, and in the Pacific Northwest’s southern and eastern regions. Meanwhile there is below average precipitation in the southwestern and southeastern states. Source: Wikipedia | El Niño-Southern Oscillation and NOAA.gov | ENSO Diagnostic Discussion

This certainly appears to be true. For the past week – 2 weeks before winter – the North Midwest (Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo) has been buried by snow.