Here in Massachusetts, snowstorms and Nor’easters are expected every winter. With each of them comes school getting called off for snow days, the sound of plows waking you up in the dead of night, and the dread of having to clean your car off the following morning. In Texas, however, snowfall is a rarity and moreover, they don’t have the infrastructure in place to properly combat it when it occurs.
This made the snowstorm that occurred there in mid-February just that much more impactful. Not only did they receive up to nine inches of snow in some areas, but they also experienced power grid failures, food and water shortages, pipe bursts in homes, and Senator Ted Cruz fleeing to Cancun among other matters. I, like numerous others, hope that this event was a wake-up call for Texas to make improvements in order to prevent something like this from happening again. But was this event also a wake-up call for all of us globally to realize that the climate change crisis is truly upon us? Or was the snowstorm simply another rare weather phenomenon?
Well for starters, let me explain how climate change may have affected the storm overall. A recent article from The John-Hopkins Newsletter explains how it can cause weather to become much more unpredictable, saying, “…higher temperatures (globally) lead to increased evaporation. Eventually, this increased evaporation leads to increased precipitation. At certain times, when temperatures are cold enough, this precipitation… which is why Texas may have had its devastating snowfall.” This certainly seems to point out why the storm was so incredibly severe, but certainly it couldn’t be the only factor.
Additionally, Texas saw record breaking cold temperatures during this storm. To put it in perspective, the average in Texas in February is a high of 65 degrees Fahrenheit, while the low is 45. During the storm however, places like Dallas experienced temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the coldest it had been there since 1989. These temperatures made the roads extremely icy for days on end, and without the salt and sand we have here in New England, they were undriveable. Influencers Brooklyn and Bailey experienced it first hand, for on their Instagram stories they gave followers an up close shot of the icy roads, which were extremely slick. It wasn’t until a few days later that the ice melted and they updated that it was safe for them to head out on the roads again.
Texas also wasn’t the only state in the southern United States to experience icy conditions. In fact, waterfalls in the Ozarks of Arkansas and swamps in Louisiana actually froze entirely, both of which are places that also rarely get snowfall or freezing temperatures. This further solidifies that this was far more than just a wacky storm in Texas, but a cold front that hit many areas neighboring it.
Now you may be asking yourself, what does a snowstorm have to do with climate change? While many associate it with the rising of global temperatures, it is important to acknowledge that extreme cold is also a sign of climate change as well. In fact it’s partially the reason why the term global warming has gone out of style, for it doesn’t accurately describe the whole situation our planet is going through. Even so, when climate change comes to mind many people think of things like the icebergs and glaciers melting, droughts, hurricanes, and so on. But the reality is that climate related disasters come in all shapes and sizes, making the Texas storm one too.
It is actually believed that this one was caused by a shift in the polar vortex jet stream, sending cold air from the artic down to North America. But as one article further explains, “the jet stream has been getting weaker over the last few years as the areas on both sides of it have gotten warmer. That has made it easier for warm air over the Arctic to shove the colder air south, fragmenting the vortex.” More importantly, if we don’t address the climate crisis now, this relationship with the vortex could get worse, leading to more winter weather devestation in the future.
This only futhers the importance of everyone doing their part to help eleviate the damage to our planet. So please, if the storm in Texas wasn’t enough of a warning, we have to start taking action now. Hold your elected officials accountable, use sustainable alternatives when you can, and let’s take back control of this climate disaster.