Record cold is bad enough. Record cold with no power is downright dangerous. That’s the situation in parts of Texas Monday morning as power demand has forced utilities to rotate forced blackouts to parts of the state. The Fort Worth Star Telegram writes:
At 7 a.m., the temperature was 6 degrees at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, breaking the previous low of 15 degrees set in 1909, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
Another record low will probably be broken on Tuesday morning. The record is 12 degrees established in 1903, and the NWS is calling for a low of 3 on Tuesday morning.
ROTATING OUTAGE UPDATE at 5:40 a.m.: Due to the severity of weather + condition of the electric grid, rotating outages in our area are lasting longer than the expected duration. To serve critical loads + protect the overall reliability of the grid, customers experiencing (1/4)
— Austin Energy (@austinenergy) February 15, 2021
We lost power last night at around 1230a and our bedroom became unbearably cold. It came back by 230.
This is us now…. IN TEXAS!?!??? pic.twitter.com/fBF0vlBM9Y
— OpTic HecZ (@H3CZ) February 15, 2021
USA Today writes:
As of Monday morning, more than 150 million people were under a winter storm warning or winter weather advisory in 25 states, stretching over 2,000 miles from southern Texas to northern Maine, the National Weather Service said.
Bitter, record-smashing cold accompanied the storm across the central U.S. Hundreds of daily record low temperatures have been or will be broken during this prolonged “polar plunge,” the weather service said, “with some February and even all-time low temperature records in jeopardy.” More than 50 million people could see temperatures dip below zero during the next several days, according to the Capital Weather Gang.
This weekend and next week will bring record-setting — and extremely dangerous — weather to Texas. ❄️🌨
Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon says to expect several inches of snow, strong winds, & record cold temperatures. @TAMUGeosciences https://t.co/J9tWl0xB51
— Texas A&M University (@TAMU) February 12, 2021
Watch more from CBS News above.