We could use some cool air here in Houston! We are hitting 100 now.
The huge temp swings happen a lot in Texas too. Especially in the fall, the temp can swing from 90-100 in the morning to 30's in the afternoon, in the matter of hours.
Yes...having been raised in Texas I know this to be true.
One example I personally experienced.
It was in 1989, maybe 1990. We lived in North Central Texas, out in the country on five acres of land about 6-7 miles west of Sanger, which is north of the DFW area on I-35.
It was in March and they were forecasting a cold front to come through that night. it has been warm...like in the high 80s, maybe low 90s...and humid (which is normal).
I watch the weather reports regularly. Grew up that way on the ranch doing so and have made a habit of it ever since.
At the time Chanel 8, channel 5, and channel 12 were all forecasting a low that night of the low 40s F, with a high the next day in the 50s F. A welcome reprieve.
But then I turned to my favorite weather man at the time, Harold Taft on channel 4. He had been around the DFW area since I was a kid...was older now...but was very seasoned and knowledgeable. He said that there was a high level low pressure system in northern Mexico that he felt would track into this cold front, resulting in it drawing much colder air down. He indicated there was a chance of snow, and several days of cold weather.
The others scoffed at it. But early the next morning, around 3 AM I was awakened to high winds, thunder, lightning and what sounded like small hail on our windows.
I went out on our porch and it was much colder and it was sleeting...frozen ice pellets hitting our windows.
By 6 AM we had 3 inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing hard. We ended up with a foot of snow by early afternoon and the temperature was in the mid 20s F. That night the snow ended, it cleared up, and got down to around 15 F degrees.
The wind created drifts of 5 feet, covering our road. It stayed below freezing for four days. we ended up being snowed in.
After two days I hiked over to a nearby farmer whom I used to haul hat for when I was younger and borrowed his tractor and front end loader to clear our road the 1/2 mile to the main road so I could take my pickup truck out and go into town some food and things for the wife and our five kids.
After four days it started to melt. We found that there had been a swath of heavy snow about 40 miles wide along and to the south of the Red River...but that even Dallas had gotten snow out of it...but they only got 2-3 inches.
I have lived in Utah, Idaho, Montana, northern California, etc.. We have seen a lot of really cold and severe weather. But the only place I was ever actually snowed in was in North Central Texas that Spring...and Harold Taft nailed it.
