FREEZING TEMPERATURES- Extremely cold temperatures have affected a wide portion of Texas during the overnight hours leaving a mix of freezing rain sleet and snow. National Weather Service Meteorologist Sarah Barnes in Fort Worth says anticipated below freezing temperatures will prolong dangerous conditions until the weekend.
"Really we're mostly concerned at this point with lingering road impacts and wind chills Friday morning and Saturday. Tomorrow morning we should see wind chills even below zero in some locations in North Texas and in the single digits elsewhere so we'll definitely want to avoid being outside if possible."
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration for more than a dozen counties heavily affected by the winter storm to help local jurisdictions, local governments rapidly respond with the tools and resources they need. The 17 counties named in the disaster declaration are mostly in the Northeastern part of Texas including Dallas, Kaufman, Navarro, Rain, Franklin, Fannin, Lamar, and Red River Counties. According to Abbott’s proclamation, the National Weather Service has predicted at least a quarter-inch of ice in these areas.
ERCOT POWER GRID - The power grid operator for most of the Lone Star State - the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, expects the demand for electricity to peak sometime this morning, and will likely set a new winter record for power consumption. Brad Jones heads ERCOT. He said despite the forecast of record-high demand, he does not expect ERCOT to ask residents to conserve energy but that could change.
"So we'll get out ahead of any potential event very early. Our goal would be if we see concern in the future, something that we want to make sure consumers of Texas could assist us in making sure the grid is reliable,” Jones said. “We'll get ahead of that in as far as advance as possible so that consumers can take those appropriate actions."
ERCOT continues to say it will have enough energy in reserve to meet demand, but scattered outages are expected due to ice coating trees and power lines. Just under 16,000 thousand* customers in Texas are without power according to www.poweroutage.us .
Arkansas reports more than 10,000 customers without power mostly in Southeast counties such as Cleveland and Lincoln counties. Louisiana reports around 1200 customers are without power this morning. :25/2:25 SNOW CHANCES? - The National Weather Service radar indicates the ArkLaTex may get a little wintery mix according to C.S. Ross, a hydrologist with the NWS in Shreveport. Ross says this morning snow will be very brief with little to no accumulation and while it will be cold tonight, we could expect things to warm up a little over the weekend. For weather updates: www.weather.gov
