On Thursday afternoon, Eric spent about an hour answering questions regarding the upcoming freezing weather event on the SCW Facebook page. There were more than 550 comments left, and Eric was able to get to a little more than 40 . You can read the best and most useful below. We’ll plan another one of these before the freeze hits, so stay tuned!
Q. I’m an essential worker in the med center, the hospital told us so far they don’t intend to call in the ride out team to where we have to stay at the hospital saturday-monday but that it could change. do you expect the conditions to get worse in the medical center area of houston or to stay the same?
A. I think that’s a prudent decision by the hospital. At this point I would lump the Medical Center in with “urban Houston,” and whether we see icy roads will depend on air temperatures on Sunday in the city. I wrote about this in our Thursday afternoon update, with the “Slower freeze” and “Faster freeze” scenarios.
Q. What impact will the ice further north of Houston have on statewide power grid? I read your post about centerpoint expecting to have sufficient power, but wasn’t sure if the broad band of icy weather could reduce the available power source again or if we are safe as long as we don’t have ice taking down local lines.
A. We are really beyond my area of expertise here. ERCOT is projecting a power surplus through the event, but certainly there could be issues with icy roads (i.e. getting workers and delivery trucks to these plants). But my sense is that generation will be up to the task with this cold weather. I hope those are not famous last words.
Q. How does the forecast compare to what we expected and what happened during [the 2021 freeze event]?
A. That lasted longer (about four days of very cold air) and its coldest temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees below what we are likely to experience this weekend. In terms of magnitude of cold, it was a more significant event.
Q. Is this weather system expected to be severe and disruptive enough to force Houston Medical Center hospitals to reduce operations? (For those of us with scheduled procedures on Monday.) Thank you!
A. It’s a good question. I cannot see hospitals closing, but out of caution they may cancel non-emergency procedures. It will depend on the likelihood of icy roads (impacting the ability of employees and patients to get to the hospital). We should know in another day or so whether that’s likely to occur in Houston.
Q. My niece is getting off her cruise ship on Saturday around 8:00 am and needs to drive home to Mineral Wells near Fort Worth. Is this a good idea?
A. I don’t think so. I think she’d be fine until she gets about half way to Dallas-Fort Worth from Houston, maybe even a little further. But after that point the risk of freezing rain is going to start going up. And being stuck in that is a potential nightmare.
Q. I need to fly to Hartford, CT or Albany (I have a choice) on Sunday leaving at 2 pm. Would leaving out of Hobby be a better choice than IAH? What are the chances the flights can go from Houston Sunday at 2 p.m.?
A. Hobby is a better choice. As for flights from Hobby it will depend on air temperatures, but I think there is probably a better than 50:50 chance that the airport is operational on Sunday afternoon.
Q. Can you pull the curtain back and tell us what your process is for monitoring these storms, when they seem to change over time? Are you constantly checking or every 2-4 hours for one model, 6-8 for another, etc?
A. There are about a dozen models I’m checking. Some update every hour, others every 6 hours, and a handful every 12 hours. So they’re all over the map. I wake up around 5:00 am and spend a long time preparing for the morning forecast. Then, for sanity’s sake, I’ll take a break for a few hours before looking at all the data coming out by or before noon.
Q. Do you hang your toilet paper roll over or under? Just kidding, maybe. All jokes aside, do you recommend dripping faucets overnights or periodically throughout the day/evening?
A. Over, of course! The notion of dripping faucets is a little bit controversial. We weighed in here, about a year ago.
Q. Are we getting really hard freeze events more frequently? I feel like it’s an annual thing now whereas until 5 years ago I felt like it was every 5 years or so we would see temps as low as upper teens.
A. This is something I want Matt to dig into when we come up for air. In the last five years we have gotten four pretty stout hard freezes and that does not feel normal for Houston, at least over the nearly 30 years I have lived here.
Q. I run a flag football little league with a few hundred kids age 6-14 involved. I am cancelling the games we had scheduled Sunday, but we had many scheduled Saturday until about 3:30 pm. Do you think there’s any way we can play in the weather Saturday, for example, could it be in the high 50s?
A. Sounds like this is an awesome initiative. I think temperatures will be fine on Saturday before 3:30 pm, but it is likely going to be raining, and at this point I believe there is also a chance of thunderstorms. So this probably is not the best environment to have children outside.
Q. What is causing the confusion amongst forecasters? Within my viewing area, many of the news meteorologists are forecasting slightly different outcomes.
A. It’s largely because it is not clear what temperatures will be in Houston on Sunday from about 10 am to 6 pm. This is the period when we could really see ice form on roads, or not. And, at present, the range of temperatures for this time period is roughly 30 to 40 degrees, depending on your choice of model or ensemble. This is why you’ve seen me constantly saying, “We’re not sure yet!”
Q. At the coldest, what do you estimate the low temperature spread will be for Houston proper (N, S, E, W) vs. Katy, The Woodlands, Kingwood, and Galveston? (The “outlying areas” are usually different from town.)
A. For The Woodlands and Katy I would put lows between 18-22 degrees on Monday morning; 19-24 in Houston, and 22-30 right along the coast.
Q. Best timing for covering outdoor plants? Saturday afternoon/evening so they get some rain or better to go ahead and cover them on Friday?
A. I’d think whenever you can get to it. Most plants got a lot of beneficial rain on Wednesday.
Q. What is MSN smoking?
A. I don’t know. It’s difficult for me to see snow falling much south of Dallas and Fort Worth, and certainly not in Houston. There are a lot of great weather apps out there, but at the end of the day it helps to have a human in the loop to ground truth all this data.
Q. Should Katy evacuate??? IYKYK 😜😂
A. Check the Settings, then the Notifications item in our app to get a definitive answer to this!
