Jeff Lindner - Harris County Meteorologist Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Days, it ever too early for ECDC. Come on, five
fifty three is our time here in Houston's Born News. Yeah,
black Eyes, we may run into a little bit of
that this morning. Jeff Linder joins US Harris County Meterologist's
let's start with the postbornem though on the snowstorm. Your thoughts,
how do you think this one ranked in Houston history.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, we're still collecting some of the data. I think
we're probably going to be definitely in the top three.
And it just kind of depends on where you know,
where you were yesterday. Intercotton Netal had about two inches
of snow, Hobby had three inches, Galveston had an inch,
but over in Laport six inches, seven inches over in Liberty,
and then it really got crazy as you went east
of Texas and Louisiana and all the way to the

(00:40):
Florida Painhandle.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
So it just really depends on where you were.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Kind of like when we have rainfall around here, some
areas get a lot more than other areas, and it
was the same thing with the snow yesterday. So unfortunately
for the record books, Intercottinental did not get three inches,
which was the record from nineteen sixty, so This wasn't
definitely a record snow for that courting site, but you know,
a memorable day for a lot of us here in

(01:04):
southeast Texas and along the entire Gulf Coast. You have
to go back to eighteen ninety five to see anything
similar to this. And what's really impressive this morning the snow,
of course, but the temperatures just east of us.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
We're talking nine degrees in.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Port Arthur and it has fallen to four degrees and Lafayette, Louisiana,
and that is just, you know, mind boggling coal down
here on the Gulf.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Coast, you know it is.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
I took some pictures in my backyard because I have
a few palm trees back there. There's nothing more surreal
than looking at a picture of a palm tree with
snow on it. And you know, there are pictures coming
out of New Orleans yesterday. I think they got like
five or six inches of snow in New Orleans and
that bitter cold as well, and it's like something from
apocalyptic movie.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
For those of us have been around here a long time,
you hear the stories from back in the sixties and
seventies when we had snow, you had a couple of inches,
and of course when Galveston Bay froze over back in
eighteen ninety five and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
And you can just.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Imagine if without all of our social media today and everything,
if we were back in the eighteen hundreds, what this
would have been like for those folks today.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
And this was very similar.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
This was a very similar event to that late eighteen
hundred snowstorm along the Gulf coast. So probably about a
once in a one hundred year event, not so much
for the Huston area, but certainly areas to the east.
Of course, this morning, the big challenges out there are
the roadways, the bridges, the overpasses. Some of that snow
that melted yesterday almost all well all of it has

(02:35):
refroze this morning. We're down to the upper teens, low twenties,
so we have ice everywhere this morning.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
We just got to give it until about.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Midday to day temperatures are good above freezing to ten
eleven o'clock and forty mid forties this afternoon will really
help in getting rid of a lot of this stuff,
and so I don't anticipate as big of issues tomorrow morning.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
We'll still have some isolated issues.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Here and there, but really getting through this morning is
the last portion of this weather.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I know you're not a plumber, obviously, but you know,
how concerned are you that as the we start the
thaw out that we start to see a rash of
frozen pipes and water main breaks and some of the
issues that can occur when you start coming out of
that deep freeze.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
You know, we have we've we've definitely gotten cold, and
the temperature felt very quick last night. So we've been
at some of these levels now for you know, ten eight,
ten hours, and so that's obviously concerning. I think what's
going to help a lot of us is obviously we
mostly we all have power.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
We've been able to run the heat. That heat against
the walls is really helping.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
And so you know, it's going to be those areas
that maybe didn't take the precautions and some of the
sprinklish systems or backflow preventters and as those thought, we
could see some breaks. But I'm hopeful that you know,
with the power on and everything, that that will be
able to mitigate some of this. But that's something to
look for you know, be on the lookout as we

(03:55):
get into that ten eleven, twelve o'clock that if you're
going to have any type of issue, that's going to
start happening around that time when those pipes stuffed it though.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
All right, Jeff, thanks for joining us. Appreciate your help
as always. Jeff Lindner, Harris County Meteorologists. It's five point
fifty seven