Two big cold air outbreaks are often mentioned as measuring sticks in Texas, and that's definitely been the case in this thread lately:
February 1899 and December 1983. These cold air outbreaks were infamous for their longevity, extent, extreme cold, and destructive power. I wanted to see how this current cold wave so far + the GFS forecast compares to these other cold air benchmarks, so I plotted the temperature time series for those events in addition to what might be coming (based on the GFS) for a few locations. I'll probably get around to plotting a few more if I have the time. Of course,
this is just one model depiction.
This is a
generational event, and it just so happens to be coupled with rare repeated shots of wintry weather. In their most recent full forecast discussion write-up, NWS Austin/San Antonio had this to say:
NWS Austin/San Antonio wrote:This is an unprecedented week of weather for South-Central Texas. Our collective group of meteorologists at our offices can not remember a time where we had 4 potential winter weather events across our County Warning Area in one week.
Note: the values for 1899 are estimates based off of the daily high and low temperature, so treat those lines more generally and not as precise readouts. The 1983 and 2021 observations are from the hourly reports. Vertical lines mark every 24 hours. Each line starts at around 12Z of the morning before temperatures fell below average.



