COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Texas A&M Regents Professor and state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has spent the past year trying to make sense of the historic Texas winter freeze of 2021.
“We’re trying to figure out what happened and put it into historical context,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “The ducks lined up, basically.”
With three decades of work in the Lone Star state, Nielsen-Gammon called last year “A top-five weather occurrence,” because of the cold, snow and duration all happening at once.
“I don’t think we’ve seen a combination like that before,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
An “anomaly” by definition of the data, Texas’ climate actually continues to warm each year because of the effects of global warming.
“The climate has gone up two degrees over time and is climbing,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
However, cold spurts are natural occurrences and he says Texas had been more fortunate than most in the region have realized.
“So here’s 2021. Temperatures got in the single digits around the state. You have to go back to 1989 to find something similar or worse,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
Despite an office full of textbooks and updated information, unpredictability is a common theme in this line of work.
“I’m not expecting anything like 2021 again this year, but I also wasn’t expecting last year either,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
The meteorological trends point to potentially cold events moving forward this winter. Nielsen-Gammon believes that it is important to treat this season like any other with extreme weather.
“That puts winter in the same season as hurricane or tornado season, be prepared to get by on a few days of your own if possible,” Nielsen-Gammon said.