Texas Faces Freeze While Weekend Snow Risks Rise in New York

A massive winter storm will sweep across a huge swath of the US starting Friday, freezing Texas before roaring up the East Coast, where New York City and Boston are seeing a strong chance of heavy snow by Sunday.

Air travel is expected to be snarled and the extreme cold brings the threat of power outages, especially in Texas, where the state’s grid will once again be tested. Possible blackouts would lead to dangerous conditions since many residents rely on electricity for heat.

The storm threatens as much as 60 hours of below-freezing temperatures across large parts of Texas, said Brian Hurley, a senior branch forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center. Cold will arrive Friday across Texas, including the oil-rich Permian Basin, before rain, snow, and ice spread across the state through the weekend. The conditions bring the threat of disruptions to natural gas production.

Abilene, Texas, is forecast to drop to 12F (-11C) Friday night, and then stay below the freezing mark of 32F through at least Sunday, the National Weather Service said. Midland will fall to 13F Friday night, with a high of 19F on Saturday and low of 9F later in the day.

“The great state of Texas is going to see it all,” Hurley said. “Snow in the north, rain in the south and everything in between.”

The storm will then bring snow and ice throughout the South and Mid-Atlantic, raising the risk of widespread power outages and tying up air travel across the US. Southern airports typically have less de-icing equipment, which can lead to delays that cascade throughout the system.

Atlanta, a major airline hub, has a 50% chance of getting at least a quarter inch of ice Saturday. As the storm moves north Sunday, delays and cancellations have a good chance to spread into New York and the Northeast.

“It is going to be a big problem,” Hurley said. “It would be tough if you were leaving on Sunday.”

Meanwhile, the chance New York City and Boston will get snow on Sunday is also rising, he said. Computer forecast models have been bringing the storm further north with every new run.

“The trend is there for New York City and Boston for this to be a pretty good snow event,” Hurley said.

Currently, a winter-storm watch stretches from New Mexico east through Tennessee and Alabama, according to the National Weather Service. Winter-weather advisories and storm warnings reach from North Dakota through the Great Lakes into western New York.

In New York City, there is a hazardous weather outlook in place that repeats Hurley’s warning that “confidence is increasing in the potential for a significant winter storm to impact the area Sunday into Monday with accumulating snowfall.”