Records fall in week-long weather event

“This was unprecedented,” Raymond Schiflett, who reports the weather weekly in the Wimberley View, said.

Schiflett has been keeping track of the weather in Wimberley every day since 1988, and the last week was nothing like he had ever seen. In fact, he skied down the road by his house a few days ago.

“There are arguably some snow storms in the 1920s or 30s that might have had more snow, but I wasn’t here to record those,” Schiflett said. “This was the most intense cold winter storm I’ve ever seen.”

Schiflett, whose weather station is now located closer to Driftwood, reported eight inches of snow with 6.5 inches coming on February 15 and 1.5 inches falling on February 18.

The National Weather Service only has records in the Wimberley area back to 1985, and they show similar numbers in terms of snowfall in an event that year that set the snowfall records for much of Central Texas. A station listed one mile northwest of Wimberley reported eight inches of snow in a storm in January of 1985. In the same storm, New Braunfels reported nine inches. Besides the 1985 storm, San Marcos previously had three snowfalls of six inches or more in the last 125 years. In December of 1929, 10 inches of snow was reported. In January of 1926 and February of 1895, six inches of snow was reported.

But there was plenty more to this storm than just snow. Schiflett recorded a low temperature of negative 1.1 degree on February 16. The National Weather Service didn’t read that low for anywhere in Hays County, they did record a negative two-degree temperature in Taylor and negative one in Burnet. The measurement in Taylor was the twelfth lowest temperature recorded in any location in the Austin and San Antonio area since the late 1800s.

This storm also set the record for most consecutive hours freezing or below. Over the week, Schiflett recorded 198 hours freezing or below. Of those 140 were consecutive. In Austin, temperatures didn’t rise above freezing on February 17 like it did for a few short hours in Wimberley when it reached 34 degrees. The National Weather Service said that Austin was below 33 degrees for exactly six days from 4 p.m. on February 12 to 4 p.m. on February 18, which beat the record set in 1983 by four hours.

“Altogether, when you combine two-thirds of an inch of ice on the ground, two snow storms, three days in a row with a low temperature under 10 degrees, a little under 200 hours under 32 degrees. That is unprecedented. We have never had that much intense, cold weather for that long,” Schiflett said.

“This was the most intense cold winter storm I’ve ever seen.”

Raymond Schiflett

Wimberley View Weather