Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — El Paso, Texas

2011-02-01 to 2011-02-04 · El Paso, Texas

Event narrative

High temperatures on Feb 2nd only warmed up to around 15F degrees across all of El Paso County. This broke the all-time record low high temperature for the city of El Paso. The low temperature on the morning of Feb 3rd fell to around 0F with 1F officially at the El Paso International Airport. El Paso experienced 78 consecutive hours of temperatures at or below freezing. All 8 of El Paso Electrics generators froze causing rolling blackouts across the city for several days. Over 200,000 customers went without electricity for at least part of the day on Feb 3rd. Due to the rolling blackouts...the water pumping stations were not able to pump enough water to keep the reservoirs full. This water problem caused water restrictions and a boil order to be put into effect. Many water main breaks and thousands of pipes in buildings throughout the city burst. Schools were closed for 5 days due to lack of water, electricity and heat.

Wider weather episode

A strong upper low dropped down the Northern Rockies which pushed a back door arctic cold front through the region. An upper level ridge was located over the eastern Pacific with the arctic jet steam diving south to the Mexican border. These two features combined to bring extremely cold air into the Western United States from Alaska and Canada.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 284698. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.