NWS Lubbock

2013 (5th-8th): Just two weeks after a bitter Arctic air mass and winter storm, a much stronger Arctic cold front plowed
through all of West Texas on the 4th, plummeting temperatures into the 20s overnight and beginning a three and a half day
period of subfreezing temperatures. In Lubbock, the temperature remained at or below freezing for 82 consecutive hours.
The worst of the cold air set in on the 7th when parts of the Rolling Plains saw sub-zero low temperatures followed by
widespread highs only in the teens! Amazingly, the temperature rocketed to 58 degrees in Lubbock by the afternoon of the
8th as breezy west winds scoured out the shallow Arctic air. The first round of wintry precipitation fell on the Extreme
Southern Texas Panhandle, South Plains, and Rolling Plains during the morning of the 5th as a lead disturbance combined
with deepening subtropical moisture. Most of this precipitation fell in the form of sleet and freezing rain for up to
three hours. A large swath of freezing rain impacted locations in the Southern South Plains into the Southern and Central
Rolling Plains, with amounts up to 1/4 of an inch creating treacherous travel. Portions of King and Cottle Counties
observed up to two and a half inches of sleet and snow combined. Nearly 100 traffic accidents were attributed to icy roads
in and around Lubbock, while icy conditions on Texas Highway 114, one mile west of Smyer in Hockley County, caused a
two-vehicle crash producing one fatality and two injuries. As the upper trough pushed out of the Great Basin and into the
Desert Southwest, another round of frozen precipitation impacted the Southern South Plains and Rolling Plains into the far
Southeastern Panhandle throughout the evening on the 5th into the morning of the 6th, consisting of mostly sleet early
before transitioning to snow as cooling occurred aloft throughout the atmosphere. Up to five inches of storm total snow
and sleet occurred in Paducah, with portions of Childress and Motley Counties reporting three and a half to four inches.
Ahead of the surge of very mild air on the 8th, widespread freezing drizzle fell over much of the region creating more
hazardous travel, particularly in Lubbock and Plainview where multiple traffic accidents were reported. The prolonged cold
and wintry precipitation negatively impacted many businesses, properties, activities such as high school football
playoffs, and even hindered cotton gin operations. Estimates of total monetary and economic losses could reach $10M.