AUSTIN, Texas — The winter storm system that moved through Central Texas over the weekend brought periods of accumulating ice and sleet, beginning as early as Friday night in the Hill Country and spreading across the Interstate 35 corridor late Saturday into early Sunday morning.
Most of the frozen precipitation fell as sleet rather than freezing rain, which helped limit impacts to power infrastructure. Unlike freezing rain, sleet does not adhere to power lines as easily, resulting in far fewer outages.
At Camp Mabry, an official total of 0.05 inches of ice and 0.6 inches of sleet was recorded, with a liquid equivalent of 0.62 inches. Had that same amount of precipitation fallen solely as freezing rain, impacts likely would have been much more significant – similar to the 2023 ice storm, when Camp Mabry recorded nearly 0.7 inches of ice accretion…