Howdy Hivers! Well, the past 3 days have been pretty wild here in North Texas! It is something of a special event whenever we get snow, though sleet and ice usually occur at least once during any given winter, if not multiple times. The recent storm that hit us is certainly more intense than anything I have ever experienced in this area ever since I was born in 1990 and grew up here!
Usually, it will snow and sleet a bit as temperatures dip slightly below freezing and promptly melt. This time, we have had sub-freezing temperatures for many days in a row, reaching as low as 0 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly -18 Celcius) in my area which is very rare.
The precipitation we got is pretty normal for places that are used to dealing with snow, but it is practically unheard of for us to stay so far under freezing that it never melts and only accumulates. We have probably gotten around 8 inches of snow here in McKinney. It is beautiful and I'm happy to experience it as well as be able to take some photo/video footage.
There was also, unfortunately, a catastrophic failure of the energy grid that led to millions of Texans (like me) not having power for the majority of 2.5 days when the outside temperatures were only getting up to 15 F (-10 C) or so. Thankfully, I was one of the lucky ones that had power come on every 6-9 hours and stay on for long enough to re-heat my house a bit. Some were totally without power to the point it was below freezing inside their homes. I have had power for the last 5 hours or so and am hopeful the situation may have normalized in my area of the state.
It has been an interesting experience and I have plenty of good stories from what has gone on, but I will save those for a potential future post as I'm fairly exhausted right now as might be expected!
Ultimately, I am left feeling very grateful to have power, and led through events to a position where it is necessary for me to continually recognize the blessing of the resources and lifestyle situation that is considered "normal" in America. For too many in developing countries around the world, frequent and unpredictable power outages are often a major aspect of daily life that can be both immensely frustrating as well as potentially quite dangerous.
