Temperatures across North Texas are beginning to rise into the holiday weekend — but not by that much.
A cold front moved into Texas on December 22, dropping temperatures into the teens. Coupled with blustering winds, hard freeze warnings were generated across the region, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
This cold front is part of a much larger “historic” arctic weather system dropping temperatures to sub-zero levels in the northern United States. This storm system created arctic conditions, such as accumulating snowfall, sub-zero temps, and wind chill, and spurred a howling bomb cyclone.
This storm also disrupted travel across the country, canceling and delaying thousands of flights.
The governors of North Carolina, Georgia, Wyoming, and Kentucky all declared states of emergency in response to the arctic storm.
The NWS in Fort Worth warned of freezing temperatures and encouraged residents to limit time spent outdoors and to take cold weather precautions.
That being said, the NWS told The Dallas Express that the metroplex only saw marginal “very dry” snowfall.
“We did get reports of some flurries to light snow and we did see visibility drop in some areas,” said Hunter Reeves with the NSW in Fort Worth.
“There has been no impact to [ground] travel. The roads stayed totally clear. Some areas did get some accumulation on the grass, but that was few and far between and very brief,” he continued.
The NWS said on Thursday that although temperatures would remain below freezing on the afternoon of December 23, they will begin to rise into the holiday weekend.
“As we move into Saturday, we may briefly touch above freezing for like an hour or so, and then we’ll get back into the low 20s,” said Reeves.
Christmas Day is expected to see some 40-degree temperatures. No precipitation is expected to fall over the weekend.
The lowest temperature recorded in the region during this weather event was 11 degrees in DFW. This is the third coldest December 22 on record, with the first coldest occurring in 1989 at a teeth-chattering 3 degrees.
The coldest Christmas on record in the region was in 1983 at 6 degrees.
Thankfully, current temperatures will continue to climb into the next week.