Cold/Wind Chill — Nueces County Islands, Texas

2021-02-14 to 2021-02-18 · Nueces County Islands, Texas

Event narrative

Freezing temperatures affected the area from the 14th until 18th. Long duration cold spell led to power outages and issues with water pressure. Damages to homes occurred when frozen pipes burst.

Wider weather episode

An outbreak of arctic air moved into south Texas on the 11th. Temperatures were near freezing over the inland coastal plains of south Texas on the morning of the 12th. The cold air deepened on the 14th as a surge of arctic air arrived. The historically cold air mass over the southern plains set record low temperatures on the 14th, 15th, and 16th. The long spell of cold temperatures led to power outages state wide. Many residences were without power for up to 5 days. Problems with water pressure occurred due to the long cold spell as well. This caused damage to many homes due to frozen and burst water pipes. Damage estimates to public property in south Texas was around 17 million dollars. The damage to private property in the state was estimated to be in the billions of dollars. So the damage estimate in south Texas could be from 3 to 10 times the amount to public property. The freezing temperatures caused environmental problems along the coast. An extensive fish kill occurred along the coast with a minimum of 4 million fish killed along the Texas coast. It was estimated that 56 thousand spotted sea trout were killed along the Middle Texas coast. The freezing temperatures affected turtles along the Texas coast. A Multi-organizational effort rescued over 13 thousand turtles along the Texas coast, with over 7 thousand rescued along the Middle Texas coast.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 946785. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.