Now for many of us, when we talk
about severe weather like this,
when we see this kind of winter weather,
it reminds you of 2021.
That was a brutal winter weather experience,
being in your homes for days without
heat or running water for a lot of folks.
OK, now, I know we think about that,
but Cleo Greeness, you have to look
at actually where we stand and why.
Maybe we can take a deep breath.
Cleo Green, Governor Abbott also
spoke about this as well. Yeah.
And he said everything is just fine.
I know it's cold outside.
Some people are worried that
they may lose power and heat.
So let's break down what you need to know.
And who may be responsible?
It is not ERCOT.
This is their supply and demand graph,
which controls about 90%
of the state's power grid.
There is more than enough
supply to meet the demand.
In fact, we never want to see these
two lines touch and they're not.
We're looking really, really good right now.
Here's the deal.
Distribution companies like Encore,
they send power to our homes and
our businesses and then they get
their electricity from the grid,
which is what ERCOT manages.
So if you just so happen to lose power today.
This is not an issue with the power grid,
it would be an issue with Encore.
In fact,
they just updated their winter update
here saying communities in Encore,
Southern, Eastern,
northeastern regions which include Tyler,
Sulphur Springs, Taylor,
they're really experiencing the
greatest impacts from this storm.
They are dealing with some downed power
lines from all of that ice accumulation.
So at this point,
you can see there's over 1000 outages,
affected customers about 45,000.
I'll send it over to meteorologist
Greg Fields because, Greg,
this is really not here in Dallas.
They're dealing without out East.
Yeah, exactly. And for us here, you know,
it's gonna be the freezing rain that
we're talking about that could cause
some power outages weighing down those
trees and power lines that we could be
dealing with a little bit later today.
The Winter storm warning we have in
effect until at 9:00 AM on Thursday.
Our eastern counties included in that.
And you can see the ice storm warning has
replaced the winter storm warning for Dallas,
Fort Worth, Denton,
Collin counties as well with the Ice
storm warning until 9:00 AM on Thursday.
We could be dealing with us some
significant ice in these areas here as
we head into the next several hours
beginning a little later this morning
that that's ongoing with the precip,
the freezing rain sleet mixed in as we head
a little farther S that's what Corsicana,
but head back toward Waco on into
East Texas where we have all rain
into a Far East Texas right now.
And then some patchy sleet,
a little freezing rain and sleet
as you get up into a Denton and
wise counties here this morning.
But it will pick up around the
rest of North Texas including the
Metroplex Little later this morning,
you see as we head toward
midday into the afternoon.
You're probably looking at
fairly widespread freezing rain,
especially by mid to late
afternoon across the area.
So we'll start to maybe
see some issues out there,
not just the roads,
but again,
as far as the trees and power
lines with the ice kind of weighing
those down a little bit later,
that's around 7:00 PM and that
continues into the evening,
overnight hours, you see around 10:00 PM,
it will let up at times.
And then as we head into the
overnight after midnight heading
toward tomorrow morning,
we'll see temperatures starting to
warm some and we'll begin to get
that transition from the freezing
rain over to all rain eventually.
But I still think we'll be below.
Freezing at that time.
So I do want to bring Marielle in
one more time to talk about when
these temperatures will finally
climb above freezing.
Yes. So we have been in freezing
temperatures since 7:00 PM on Sunday,
and it's Wednesday at 6:50.
Now we in the morning,
we're looking at a temperature of 27
degrees right now in Dallas Fort Worth,
just widespread 20s.
And the wind chill, though,
is in the teens and in the low 20s.
So that wind is still a factor.
Let's talk about our hourly
temperatures though, throughout today.
Today we don't climb.
Too much with our temps. In fact,
it stays at about 29 degrees by noon,
30 degrees, maybe around 7:00.
And overnight we're starting to
get close to that freezing point,
but not quite there.
Look at this.
This is now Thursday,
around 1033 degrees.
That'll be the first time
we make it above freezing,
and that would accumulate
a total of 87 hours,
with temperatures staying at
freezing out Thursday afternoon,
temperatures in the upper 30s.
By then we'll see that cold.
Rain still in the area.
It does look like temperatures get close
to that freezing point again Friday
morning with a temperature of 32 degrees.
Our roads may still be wet at this time,
but by the afternoon,
sunshine and 51 degrees.
And then over the weekend,
cold mornings,
but highs in the 50s.
Saturday 60s on Sunday.
Almost like none of this ever happened.
But we still have some time
to shower. We still have at least another
24 hours of freezing temperatures.
We're not there just yet, but you know.
You know, imagine looking to the future.