Last week’s horrendous ice storm hitting the Southeast US missed most of North Texas, giving us a few scares but not inflicting any serious damage upon the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We also missed out on the predicted icestorm coming through the area in time for Super Bowl Sunday, and even if we had, everyone was already prepared. We got some desperately needed rain last Sunday and on Tuesday morning, but the sleetstorm passed to the north, and we weren’t subjected to last-minute panics of idjits sliding around Dallas highways crying “I need to buy the bread and milk and hot wings!”
No, our problem is that, for North Texas, this is the Winter That Just Won’t Shut Up. We get bouts of seriously cold weather, yes, and usually right about now. For instance, we had the record snowfall in February 2010: for us, 12 inches of snow was “record”, but that’s to be expected. We also had the horrible ice storm and week of deep cold in February 2011, just in time for the big Super Bowl game hosted at the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. In 2012, though, we practically had a year without a winter, as we skirted freezing temperatures but never really went over. That was the late winter where the dogwood and quince trees started blooming in late February, and we all waited for a last-minute ice storm that, thankfully, never came through.
This winter, though, hasn’t been particularly abusive since the Icepocalypse in December. No major storms since then, no major power outages, and no glass-slick highways. The problem, though, is that we regularly and consistently go well below freezing almost every night, and have done so at least twice per week since the middle of December. I’ve now been in Texas for a third of a century and I’ve never seen a winter quite like this, and my mother-in-law, who keeps up with these things, can’t remember a winter like this in all of her time in Texas, either. Considering that she’s a native, I trust her assessment.
In the meantime, all Texans have one thing in common, no matter their political, economic, social, or educational backgrounds, and that’s our ability to kvetch about the weather. Some joke that we should make it into an Olympic sport, but our skill at complaining about inevitability means that nobody else could come close. It’s like entering the SpaceX Dragon in the bicycle race, and then wondering why the silver and bronze winners had such lousy times. And with a winter like this, we’re currently stomping the pros. After two months of cold, nasty, depressing weather, we’re starting to sound like Chicagoans, and that’s saying something.
The real worry? We’re whimpering and snuffling and grumbling now about how cold it is, and how we can’t wait until summer. Oh, woe, we’ll never thaw out! Misery, despair, high heating bills! WhatEVER will we do? I worry because we’re only four months away from the beginning of summer, and even the most vile Texas winter is a kiss compared to the blasting nightmare waiting for us in June and July. And I’m not looking forward to the pterosaur rookery impersonation coming from legions of maroons just waiting to tell each other, and anybody they can catch, “It’s HOT!” all through August.
So, yeah, go ahead and sing your select cuts from the Frozen soundtrack. Have fun. I can tell you what to expect for a soundtrack in July, and you aren’t going to like it: