Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — Mclennan, Texas

2021-02-14 to 2021-02-16 · Mclennan, Texas

Event narrative

Extreme cold gripped the county for several days. Overnight lows were below 25 degrees Fahrenheit almost all week. The period of February 15-16th was the coldest with low temperatures in the single digits and slightly below zero degrees Fahrenheit. The maximum temperature on the 15th was only in the teens. Wind chill values during the 14th-16th were between 10 to -10 degrees Fahrenheit most of the time. The cold temperatures resulted in an extreme amount of damage to pipes, infrastructure, and power. The State listed 1 fatality in McLennan County due to the winter storm but no additional information could be obtained.

Wider weather episode

A historic winter storm, that began on February 9th, 2021, continued to cripple the region through February 19th. One wave of winter precipitation moved across the region February 13-15th, with another round of snow and ice on February 16-17th. Snowfall totals for both rounds ranged from 1 inch to nearly 10 inches with the largest snowfall totals across the eastern counties of the CWA. Icing totals were highest across parts of Central Texas again where over a half inch of ice was reported in some areas. While the snow and ice had impacts to transportation, power and more, the largest impacts were from the record breaking cold temperatures and wind chills.

Extremely cold temperatures and wind chills gripped the region during this period. The impacts and damages to the region during this historic event were largely due to the cold temperatures/wind chills. The cold temperatures resulted in days-long power outages for some, and an immeasurable amount of pipe, infrastructure and building damage. Damage totals that have been reported so far are near 140 million for North and Central Texas, and most of that is likely contributed to the cold weather. In addition, 30 deaths were officially reported during this period/event. Many of the details of each case were unknown at the time of publication due to pending information from county officials, but many of the known causes were due to hypothermia or the cold weather.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 942665. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.