santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
I almost have to laugh at your post here as we have close to the same situations here. We can get a bit colder than H-town, but on average there are only three or four days a year that our temperature doesn't rise above freezing. Except the winter of '89 when it remained between -1 and 15 for close to three weeks.Well it is probably a relative definition. In a "normal" winter 30 degree lows and 50 for a high. In 1989 we had an eleven day stretch where the high never reached 32. It was pure chaos. This part of the country isn't prepared for that kind of weather. I worked in a chemical plant at the time. Every water line froze, product lines froze and pipe bursts were everywhere. Homes didn't fare much better. I had have 2 pipes split. You don't want to see them drive on our rare snowfalls.
The following is taken from the Current Results weather and science facts website. This is for Dallas a bit further south (60 miles) than we are.
"The year's coldest days for Dallas usually occur at the end of December and beginning of January when the daily maximum temperature averages 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) and the minimum averages 37 °F (3 °C).
The year's hottest days are normally in early August. The average temperature peaks then with daily highs of 97 °F (36 °C) and nighttime lows of 78 °F (25 °C).
175 days | 80 °F max. or more (27 °C) |
65 days | 40 °F min. or less (4 °C) |
The thermometer dips to freezing on an average of 23 nights a year. Most years, Dallas doesn't get as cold as 10 °F (-12 °C)."
Driving through the country during a warm up after 20° nights, one occasionally sees water running out the front doors of pier and beam homes where the occupants are out of town.
And yes! Snow or ice on the roads is a disaster. An eerie feeling is being the first one down one of our rural roads after a nighttime snowfall, where you have to judge where the road actually is from memory and the fenceposts (and sometimes cows) along the side of the road. Done that several times for my first 1.5 miles!