Texas Winter 2011-2012...

[Texas Snowman]

We are overdue for a 1989 outbreak!!! I wasn't born yet to experience that.

I was in college at UNT during the 1989 outbreak. It was -2 at my parent's house on Christmas morning that year. There was also a huge fire at the Beall's Department Store in Denison on Christmas Eve with the mercury hovering around 12 degrees. The fireman were caked in solid ice and were taking shifts going into a nearby store for hot chocolate, coffee, to warm up, and to break the ice off their coats and gear. Unfortunately, it was a multi-alarm fire that burned down a three story department store and cost one fire-fighter his life.

I was a senior in high school during the December 1983 outbreak. Snow fell here in Denison on December 14 and very early on the 15th (I think we had 6-7" at my house) and it ushered in the arctic attack. Repeated arctic frontal passages kept the temperature below 32 degrees for 296 consecutive hours in Dallas and about the same number of hours here in the Red River Valley. We had snow on the ground until New Years.

Water mains froze and burst, pipes burst in many homes, there were a number of fires from people trying to heat their houses, and many smaller lakes froze over completely to the point you could walk or skate on them.

At 89,000-acre Lake Texoma, only the main lake body/river channel remained totally ice free. All of Texoma's lake arms, creek channels, and backwaters were frozen solid with several inches of ice. I tried to go duck hunting and three of us couldn't even crack the ice. Another older friend slid his airboat across the ice to reach an open patch of water during that spell.

[Texas Snowman]

Lengthy read that I'll post in three parts. But it's worth the read because it provides plenty of historical perspective courtesy of Houston Chronicle outdoors writer Shannon Thompkins. This 2003 story recalls the 1983 and 1989 freezes along the Texas Gulf Coast. Amazing tales told below...

-----

Christmas 1983 freeze left heavy mark on Texas coastal fisheries

By SHANNON TOMPKINS

AUTUMN'S official final day in 1983 became the unofficial first day of a new reality for Texas coastal fisheries resources, the people who manage them and the Texans who enjoy them.

Events that began that day, 20 years ago this week, accelerated changes in Texas coastal fisheries management philosophy, forced anglers to accept the fragility of coastal resources and left wounds in the inshore fishery that may never heal.

"It changed everything," Gene McCarty, former director of coastal fisheries for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and current chief of staff for the agency, said of what has become known as the Christmas '83 Freeze.

Dec. 21, 1983, dawned seasonably mild with a light, humid southeast wind blowing from the Gulf.

That afternoon, an arctic cold front of epic strength rushed south over Texas, bringing screaming north wind, sleet and dropping temperatures.

Temperature slipped below freezing in Houston the afternoon of Dec. 22, and did not rise above that mark for five days -- a record that still stands.

The Texas coast was locked in one of the most severe, persistent freezes in more than a century.

Christmas morning, Houston recorded a low of 11 degrees. Galveston registered 14 degrees. It was 6 below zero in Dallas, and 13 in Del Rio.

"It was 15 degrees in Palacios," said Paul Hammerschmidt, who in 1983 was a TPWD coastal fisheries biologist based in Port O'Connor. "It was warmer in Anchorage, Alaska."

Another brutal arctic cold front just before New Year's Day reinforced the cold, and kept temperatures below or near freezing for several more days.

"I remember getting in a net skiff with a commercial fisherman in Flour Bluff (near Corpus Christi) on Jan. 2 and going down to Baffin Bay," said Ed Hegen, then a TPWD coastal fisheries biologist working out of Rockport. "It was unbelievably cold. I don't think I've thawed out since then."

What Hegen, now Lower Texas Coast regional director for TPWD's coastal fisheries division, saw in Baffin Bay that day mirrored what other TPWD coastal fisheries staff witnessed when they went afield to survey the bays.

"There were windrows of dead fish everywhere," Hegen recalled. "They were stacked for yards along the shorelines. Spotted seatrout, redfish, drum -- every species in the bay."

The shallow bay was clear as glass, Hegen said. Visible on the bay floor was a carpet of dead fish at least equal to the numbers stacked against the windward shores and floating in sheets on the surface.

[Texas Snowman]

(Part II)

Texas inshore marine fisheries had been caught in a frigid, fatal trap. Evolved for life in a temperate, even tropical environment, Texas marine life is not built to endure severe cold. Caught in water about 45 degrees or lower for more than a day, they die. Death can come from suffocation -- the metabolism of the cold-blooded fish slows to the point they can't extract oxygen from the water. Or they can suffer frostbite, having the flesh of fins, tails and other extremities literally frozen.

"The severity and duration of the '83 freeze were what made it so deadly," said Hammerschmidt, now program director of regulations for TPWD's coastal fisheries division.

Fisheries biologists knew fish were dying, but they couldn't get on the water to assess the impact until the worst of the weather had passed.

"The bays literally froze over," Hammerschmidt said. "We couldn't get boats in the water."

"There was ice 4 inches thick for 100 yards off the shore (of the Upper Laguna Madre)," Hegen remembers. "We had to wait until it began breaking up to get on the water."

TPWD scrambled coastal fisheries staff to begin assessing the freeze's impact, surveying the bays from boats, on foot and from the air.

It was worse than they could imagine.

The first place Hammerschmidt inspected was the shallows of the San Antonio and Espiritu Santo bays.

"I went into Shoalwater Bay and it was covered with dead fish -- redfish stacked in heaps like cordwood."

The beach of Matagorda Island was littered with carcasses of adult redfish and the occasional sea turtle.

Texas bays have always seen occasional freeze-triggered fish kills. But almost all during the 20th Century had been relatively minor or affected only portions of the Texas coast.

The Christmas '83 Freeze was different. It hammered the entire Texas coast, from Sabine Pass to Port Isabel.

[Texas Snowman]

(Part III)

TPWD coastal fisheries biologists began counting dead fish, using sampling techniques they had developed as part of standardized fish population research the agency had begun in 1975. At the time it was the most avant-garde fisheries work in the nation.

The tally was breathtaking. TPWD estimated the freeze killed more than 20 million coastal finfish. The number of invertebrate marine life -- shrimp, crab, etc. -- lost was estimated at more than one-billion organisms.

Not since 1952 had Texas seen such a widespread and devastating freeze-caused fish kill.

In 1952, Texas fisheries managers could do little to address the effects of such a crippling blow to coastal fisheries. Coastal fisheries were relatively lightly utilized and the Texas Game, Fish and Oyster Commission (precursor to TPWD) was hamstrung by political realities of the day.

But 1983 was different.

Earlier that year, the Texas Legislature had passed the Uniform Wildlife Regulatory Act, a watershed piece of legislation that gave TPWD authority to set statewide fishing and hunting regulations.

(Prior to the law, counties could, and often did, set their own hunting and fishing regulations, even if in direct conflict with state regulations, blunting scientific management efforts.)

Also, improved science, a move toward proactive management of fisheries and a public becoming increasingly aware of pressure on coastal resources set the stage for what happened in the wake of the '83 freeze.

Almost immediately, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission moved to impose more conservative recreational and commercial fishing regulations.

Fisheries needed the protection.

Anglers needed no convincing of that. The bays were empty.

But TPWD used its sampling protocols to document the massive hole the freeze left in coastal fisheries.

"The freeze proved the value of our long-term monitoring programs,"
Hammerschmidt said. "We could document the state of the fisheries to justify management moves and track their effectiveness."

"That freeze was the thing that shaped our coastal fisheries management philosophy, and turned the focus on conservation," said Gene McCarty. "We began looking at the long-term, and being proactive instead of reactive. It was the direction we were heading, but the freeze accelerated things."

When the freeze hit, McCarty was working at the just-opened John Wilson Fish Hatchery near Corpus Christi, the first hatchery in the nation devoted to producing inshore marine fish for stocking into coastal waters.

The hatchery's focus was on redfish, a species that even before the freeze had been decimated by overfishing.

"Prior to the freeze, we were in the research and assessment mode, just getting our feet on the ground and stocking fish only in San Antonio and Espiritu Santo bays," McCarty said. "After the freeze, we immediately went statewide, stocking redfish in every bay on the coast."

"The freeze kicked our hatchery program into high gear," Hegen said. "We had been initially working just with redfish, but we started doing the first really serious research into raising trout because of the freeze."

Coastal fishing was horrible in 1984 and into '85. But the trout and redfish fisheries slowly improved, statewide.

Then, in 1989, two killer freezes -- in February and another at Christmas -- killed millions more coastal fish.

But the damage from those freezes totaled about half the casualties of the '83 freeze. TPWD imposed slightly tighter fishing regulations, worked on habitat and stocking. It helped that, in 1988, all netting had been banned from coastal waters, a move justified by TPWD's monitoring.

The coastal fishery recovered from those '89 freezes much quicker than in '83.

"That faster recovery is directly related to lessons we learned from the '83 freeze," Hammerschmidt said.

[Ntxw]

Holy cow you are young! I was fifteen when that happened. Yikes I am old. But I do remember it well though. Frozen pool almost a foot thick. Dad got on to me for making ice chunks and cracking the pool tile. How does your young brain have so much weather knowledge? Very impressive. Did I just reveal my age?

At 89,000-acre Lake Texoma, only the main lake body/river channel remained totally ice free. All of Texoma's lake arms, creek channels, and backwaters were frozen solid with several inches of ice. I tried to go duck hunting and three of us couldn't even crack the ice. Another older friend slid his airboat across the ice to reach an open patch of water during that spell.

I've heard a lot of stories about it, pretty crazy stuff. It's disappointing the 90s were a complete opposite lol.

Thanks for the comment but really a lot of the stuff about weather I know is just absorbed through this board from wise weather minds here and the pro mets along with a bit of extra reading on the side about weather, and experiencing the events the past several years since I've joined. Storm2k really is a great place to start the learning!

[Texas Snowman]

I've heard a lot of stories about it, pretty crazy stuff. It's disappointing the 90s were a complete opposite lol. Thanks for the comment but really a lot of the stuff about weather I know is just absorbed through this board from wise weather minds here and the pro mets along with a bit of extra reading on the side about weather, and experiencing the events the past several years since I've joined. Storm2k really is a great place to start the learning!

Same here. This board is a fascinating and highly educational place during the winter, during spring's severe weather season, and during the hurricane season.

[gpsnowman]

We are overdue for a 1989 outbreak!!! I wasn't born yet to experience that.

I was in college at UNT during the 1989 outbreak. It was -2 at my parent's house on Christmas morning that year. There was also a huge fire at the Beall's Department Store in Denison on Christmas Eve with the mercury hovering around 12 degrees. The fireman were caked in solid ice and were taking shifts going into a nearby store for hot chocolate, coffee, to warm up, and to break the ice off their coats and gear. Unfortunately, it was a multi-alarm fire that burned down a three story department store and cost one fire-fighter his life.

I was a senior in high school during the December 1983 outbreak. Snow fell here in Denison on December 14 and very early on the 15th (I think we had 6-7" at my house) and it ushered in the arctic attack. Repeated arctic frontal passages kept the temperature below 32 degrees for 296 consecutive hours in Dallas and about the same number of hours here in the Red River Valley. We had snow on the ground until New Years.

Water mains froze and burst, pipes burst in many homes, there were a number of fires from people trying to heat their houses, and many smaller lakes froze over completely to the point you could walk or skate on them.

At 89,000-acre Lake Texoma, only the main lake body/river channel remained totally ice free. All of Texoma's lake arms, creek channels, and backwaters were frozen solid with several inches of ice. I tried to go duck hunting and three of us couldn't even crack the ice. Another older friend slid his airboat across the ice to reach an open patch of water during that spell.

Thats sad to hear about the fireman losing his life. I was in 4th grade living in San Antonio at the time of the 1983 outbreak. Don't remember any snow but it was below freezing for a stretch. Even then, winter weather was something I enjoyed but not so much in San Antonio. Of coarse, after moving to the Dallas area in summer of 84 San Antonio gets a foot of snow 6 months later! Oh well. That January and February of 85 was good for a couple of snowstorms in North Texas if memory serves me right.

[Rgv20]

Looking way out in time the Weeklies CFS is showing Canada to be in a deep freeze.


Forecast valid for the 19 thru 25 of Jan2012.

[Ntxw]

0z Euro is giving an area from Midland-San Angelo to I-35 W (SW counties of DFW, Stephenville, Brownwood, Granbury etc, NW areas of San Antonio, Western Hill Country of Austin) underneath the low via trowal measurable snow Monday night/Tuesday morning

Edit: It's also showing another round of light snow for the same regions with frontal passage and another disturbance following the system.

[txagwxman]

I don't know, me thinks the warmer GFS is right on this one...remember how the ECMWF was too cold on the last snow event?

[txagwxman]

I was a freshman in high school during the 1983 event. 1989 was shorter lived but brutal. 7F SW side of Houston that day plus 1-2" of snow on the ground.

[wxman57]

I was working where I am now back in 1983 (and before). I remember going on a bike ride the day the front hit. It sure was cold that afternoon. Below freezing for 5 days near Christmas meant that many who had traveled away from home came back to find a flooded house as water pipes in the attic burst. I remember flying to New Orleans on my way to my mother's in Mississippi. There was no heat at the airport and it was darn cold inside the terminal. Saw ice atop the marsh as we flew across south LA.

I also remember that prior to the big freeze there was a gradual buildup of snow/ice to our north, paving the way for a nearly unmodified Arctic airmass to reach Texas. Fortunately, there's nothing like that 1983 or '89 winter appearing on the long range models. And there's no snow cover to our north to speak of.

GFS is still forecasting some quite cold air to come down near the end of the run, which it is in a habit of doing most runs. The key will be IF the cold air ever does build over western Canada after mid month. It's not there yet.

[Texas Snowman]

Tweets from @Henry_Margusity this morning...

"The SOI 30-day running mean has fallen below 20 which continues to prove the La Nina is on a weakening trend."

"I am glad to see that other Mets are seeing the SOI dropping and the weakening on the La Nina."

"This is such an amazing weather pattern evolving. I told all the Mets that we have a lot of winter ahead of us."

[orangeblood]

6Z GFS run is a really good example of the kind of potential this pattern has...with an enormous Arctic High dropping down from Canada beginning next weekend an engulfing the eastern 2/3rds of the US with brutal cold the following week. It even has frozen precip falling on a shore of every gulf coast state. We're starting to get within the 240 hour time frame so these models should start to have a better depiction of the larger scale features.

The Euro is even showing this high developing as well. If that big of a high does come to fruition, I find it hard to believe that it would be held up in Canada for too long given the cross polar flow depicted by most models.

[cycloneye]

Tweets from @Henry_Margusity this morning...

"The SOI 30-day running mean has fallen below 20 which continues to prove the La Nina is on a weakening trend."

"I am glad to see that other Mets are seeing the SOI dropping and the weakening on the La Nina."

"This is such an amazing weather pattern evolving. I told all the Mets that we have a lot of winter ahead of us."

And the daily SOI crosses to negative.

6 Jan 2012 1012.86 1009.10 -4.00

http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/seaso ... soivalues/

[weatherdude1108]

This board is great! I love reading about the stories and freeze histories people have experienced. I was a youngster in San Antonio during the 1983 freeze. My brothers and I set up a hose to a nozzle and hung it on the basketball goal in the spray position and had it spray the patio all night. Got down well into the teens that night. The next morning, there was ice everywhere, and the tree branch nearby broke off onto the patio from the weight of the ice (parents weren't pleased). We had our own winter wonderland the next morning, sliding across the patio once we got the tree branch cleared. Lasted a few days! We did that several times during the 80s. Then, we actually had a couple inches of snow in early January '85; had the 14.2 inches several days later on January 11-13th, '85; and had a dusting a third time late in the month that same January '85! Good times! My older brother (who could drive) took his Celica out and did donuts in the snow when not another soul was out driving. I got spoiled, thinking/hoping it would happen again the next year, etc., etc. That snowfall in January '85 was the beginning of my "weathergeekness." Drives my wife nuts when I have the radar pulled up on my phone, but she's used to it.

[weatherdude1108]

Time to break out the shorts, t-shirt, and sandals -- on JANUARY 6TH!

Austin, TX
Today: Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 73. South southwest wind between 5 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

[Portastorm]

Anyone see the 6z GFS? Some wintry fun for the southern half of Texas beyond 300 hours. Just for grins, of course!

[ThunderSleetDreams]

I was 7 years old in 1989 and remember the week of Christmas/New Years vividly. It was really my first real experience with Winter and I thought all winters would be like that going forward. Boy, the 90s were a real disappointment.

Ever since I was 5, I wanted to be a Pro Met. I used to draw up maps at a very young age for my parents and Grandparents and even invited local weather guys to my school in Longview. I've always had a strong love for weather, particularly Winter Weather and Severe Weather.

When I got to A&M, I got into some other fun things that gave me plentiful opportunities.... The Financial and Energy Industry.

I still try to find myself in situations where I can go experience unique blizzards, noreasters or tornado outbreaks when I get a chance.

[txagwxman]

I was 7 years old in 1989 and remember the week of Christmas/New Years vividly. It was really my first real experience with Winter and I thought all winters would be like that going forward. Boy, the 90s were a real disappointment.

Ever since I was 5, I wanted to be a Pro Met. I used to draw up maps at a very young age for my parents and Grandparents and even invited local weather guys to my school in Longview. I've always had a strong love for weather, particularly Winter Weather and Severe Weather.

When I got to A&M, I got into some other fun things that gave me plentiful opportunities.... The Financial and Energy Industry.

I still try to find myself in situations where I can go experience unique blizzards, noreasters or tornado outbreaks when I get a chance.

Yep, I was the same way...and I drove my dad nuts when I told him I was going to major in meteorology. But in the end it was a great decision.