Historic winter storms hits Wimberley

Records were broken across the Wimberley Valley as a historic winter storm slammed into the entire state of Texas. Thousands of people in Wimberley alone weathered some of the coldest nights on record without electricity, many with out heat.

“Due to continued frigid weather across Texas, the regional electric grid is operating under emergency conditions,” a statement from Pedernales Electric said. “Utilities statewide, including Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC), have been directed to reduce demand. As a result, service interruptions will occur throughout the PEC service territory.”

The lowest snowfall reported on February 15 in the Wimberley Valley was four inches.

“The snow is very fine, very powdery,” Wimberley View Weather Reporter Raymond Schiflett said. “(February 15, we only had .4 inches of water but produced seven inches of snow… Normally one inch of water is one inch of water equals to 10 inches of snow. What we got was ultra dry snow. It is like Utah snow. This is what they have there. The snow we got four weeks ago was a wet snow.”

A weather station in Woodcreek reported 5.5 inches and the highest totals came in at around 6.5 inches in Driftwood.

Schiflett said he measured a record windchill of minus-10 degrees in the early morning hours of February 15. (Due to the weather, the Wimberley View was unable to update information for the night of February 15 and morning of February 16, which were expected to be even colder. Schiflett said that the previous record was minus-two degrees from 1989, and that he expected to get to around one degree on the morning of February 16.)

The cold spell was also likely to break a record for consecutive hours under 32 degrees. As of the time of the interview, Wimberley had not gone above freezing for about 96 hours. Schiflett said he expected that to last until the afternoon of Friday, February 19, which would be around 180 consecutive hours below freezing.

The entire week as been one for the record books.

“It was a polar vortex that normally stays over the North Pole broke loose,” Schiflett said. “It came south and across the plains and right into our lap. That doesn’t usually happen. It normally spins around in Canada. It broke loose and a large mass came down. Most people are saying it broke lose because of the warming trends in the climate. As the warm jets changed course, it dislodged the vortex temporarily. Apparently it may have changed its path and caused it to dislodge from its position and sent it south… That combined with the force of the low-pressure systems that came out of the Pacific Northwest. This is not a short-term event, but it’s not forever. We are not Colorado yet. By Saturday we should be in the 60s. ”

While the snow was a welcome entertainment, it also caused plenty of scary situations. Essentially ever road in the Wimberley Valley was iced over to some extend leaving many people stranded on the roadside and the rest stuck at home.

The incredible cold snap strained the state’s electrical grid causing power companies to have rolling blackouts to keep energy demand below supplies.

As of the time of press, Wimberley ISD canceled school on through Wednesday with the potential for those cancellations to continue further into the week.

Hays County also issued a disaster declaration because of the weather event.