In brief: In this afternoon update we talk about how the Arctic air may be arriving a little later than expected, and what that means for potentially icy roads this weekend.
Setting some expectations
Good afternoon. We are going to continue with twice-daily updates this week due to the interest in, and potential severity of, a winter storm this weekend. Before getting to that, however, I just want to note the nice amount of rainfall that fell over much of the region today. Most locations received 0.5 to 1.0 inch of rain, which was above expectations. Although this won’t spell the end of our region’s drought, a little bit of rainfall goes a long way in January. And as you may have heard, we have more precipitation on the way this weekend.
I also want to take a moment to set expectations. There has been some talk comparing the upcoming Arctic blast to the extremely cold winter storm in February 2021. I just want to say we are not anticipating temperatures nearly that cold (if you recall, low temperatures across the region in 2021 ranged from about 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit). Nor is the cold expected to last as long. Although this winter storm has the potential to be impactful, it will be of shorter duration. So yes, we should all be prepared for inconveniences, but I don’t expect total bedlam this time around.
You have questions about electricity and travel. We don’t have all the answers. What I can tell you is that ERCOT expects to have ample power generation during the coldest weather on Sunday and Monday. Locally, in terms of transmission, CenterPoint says it is well prepared to respond to outages, and is testing and hardening equipment. Hopefully that is the case. With regard to travel, we don’t know much more. In terms of flights, I think getting into and out of Houston airports will be fine on Friday and Saturday, but we do have some concerns about Sunday and Monday. We’ll see.
When is this mess getting here?
The one trend we’ve observed over the last day or so is a delay in the arrival of really cold air in Houston. With the caveat that all of this could still change, I now think we will see temperatures well above freezing in Houston (and surrounding counties) for much of Saturday. I would go so far as to say, tentatively, that it should be fine to move around the region through at least 9 pm CT on Saturday, and possibly a little later…