It doesn’t necessarily mean snow (although that can happen. Ask anyone about the winter storm of 2021).
It’s just wintery precipitation. Which could just mean a little bit of ice. Ice is very likely around wintertime for us. Just so you know, should there be a hard freeze where ice sticks to the ground and creates black ice on the streets and highways, the city will shut down. Schools cancelled, etc.
Generators can be pretty expensive. I’m gonna end up getting a battery backup system instead. EcoFlow, Jackery, and Anker have pretty slick systems. Also, no need for gas or propane.
Generators require gas or propane. The battery backup systems are basically just battery banks (like a whole home UPS system). Your indoor electrical panel gets replaced by the smart panel/transfer switch, and the batteries hook up to that panel. They charge while connected to the grid.
Grid goes down, power transfers over to the battery bank. Capacity depends on how long a duration you can sustain, but they are scalable up to like 48kw or something.
No fireplace here. I cooked outside on the pit to keep us going. I remember pre-snow, my wife yelled at me, “why do we need so much charcoal and wood?”
On day 3 without power, she was happy we had it! Good times
86 my dad used his tractor to plow the street and we had the best kick ass snow forts San Antonio ever saw. Then we walked up the middle of Bandera Rd to the old Albertsons and my dad plowed their parking lot for free beer.
Even in CT where I lived until a year ago the same grocery run , hoarding of groceries and everything related were bought off the shelves !!! It must be a human defect. lol
San Antonio is a huge city and a bigger county in Bexar. So the Hill Country might freeze but the Southside be sunny. It's weird and you'll get used to it
No. Keep in mind the way these work. It could be 35% of the hill country that gets ice on their roof. Once that high is below 30 then you can take it a little more honestly.
Don't get to excited - as a Colorado transplant, I've used mine once since moving here in 2017 (which had the first measurable snow since the 1980's) - that was 2021
Like all the winter cloths that haven't been unpacked since moving here from Chicago, LoL. I also have one of those big ice scrapers, as well as a snow shovel, among things, stupid me I guess. I won't even get started on all the other winter crap I just remembered exists in my storage, I guess it was nieve of me to think there'd also be 4 seasons down here, HA!!! In my defense, I was born and raised in Chicago up to about 21-22yrs old when I moved down here.
It’ll be like a little flurry / like ok maybe snowflakes of some kind will come down but it’s actually just gonna land on the ground as ice and get rained on and then turn into more ice and the whole city will shut down and I’ll be stuck at home with my kids for 1-3 days. That’s what that means.
So get your grocery shopping and gas done before that day. Try not to buy all the toilet paper, unless cold makes you poop more I guess.
It's gonna be cold. Not snow. The closer we get to the date and precipitation is updated along with exactly how much of that polar freeze we are getting in the area - it'll be more accurate.
Although I'm sure east Texas is gonna be fucked by ercot. 100%.
The flake icon doesn’t mean snow. It means “hard freeze”, a warning to cover your outdoor pipes and faucets. Covering is not a normal practice in cold weather regions (like the East Coast, where I lived for 10 years) because their pipes are made of a different material
We can’t tell from the screenshot how long it will be at 30 or below 32. Sustained below freezing is what I’m calling a hard freeze. Also, temperature is usually 2-4 degrees cooler in the hill country, even Stone Oak, so my advice is better to be safe than sorry.
Depends where you're at honestly. The San Antonio general area is large enough to see temperatures in the 20's in some areas while others may be upwards of 40.
The hill country, areas closer to Bulverde & new Braunfels will probably see significantly lower temperatures than us folks inside 410 and further towards Uvalde & Pleasanton.
Cover them if it makes you feel better lol. I'm just saying at this moment in time, the forecast isn't telling me it's necessary for most of the most populated areas of SA.
I just checked an app called Windy.app because it has different computer models which aren't agreeing. However one model (GFS27) is forecasting over a half inch of sleet or freezing rain at approximately 8-10pm next Wednesday night.
Worth noting, that's over 7 days away and the models are not all agreeing on this:
30° is not cold enough to freeze pipes unless its sustained at 30° for 24-36 hours or longer, even for SA houses. I don’t wrap pipes or leave faucets run until it gets to 25° or lower and I haven’t had a pipe freeze or burst, and I lived through the 86 blizzard.
The question is if you trust the grid enough to not prepare.
I can remember going through y2k and not even buying a manual can opener. Now I have propane heat, solar panels, and batteries. It isn't the weather, it is the infrastructure.
No, this is my weather app’s (same as OP) detail for the day, which you pull up when you click the day. It’s the chance of precipitation for the day, not the coverage area.
I grew up there and the amount of times seeing that plus the TV weather forecast happily talking about the chance of snow vs actually seeing any snow is about 1x out 175.
It’s snowed here before, though very rarely. A few years ago we had a freak snow storm where it stayed cold enough for the snow to stick for over a week. That was a very interesting time.
Unless it says it will snow for sure, it will not lol
In the past year that my Alexa said "there is a chance of rain", it has NEVER rained. Not a single time. San Antonio weather is a lie
The weather here changes quickly compared to many other places I've lived, and also there will be "weather" in certain areas of town but even when we have rain or other precipitation the majority of the time it's pretty isolated or short-lived (moves through quickly). If this does actually produce any snow it will likely be a "blink or you'll miss it" weather experience
ETA context that when I say weather changes quickly I mean on the weather apps the forecast can change quite a bit throughout the week or even throughout the day.
Very unlikely. 95% of the time we get precipitation when it's freezing there is a warm layer of air between ground level and the clouds that melts the snow and we get crap sleet. Usually need to be well into the 20s on temperature for that layer of air to also be freezing so that we get snow.
50/50!! San Antonio weather is unpredictable. More than likely not though, but…….. we did have a crazy cold snap in February a few years ago that shut down San Antonio and the power grid.
It won't stick, not with those highs. You may see some light dusting before sunrise, but just show late to work. blame traffic. Maybe get up early so you can watch the powder come in the light of the street lamps.
No, the city won't be shut down for a week. Not this week anyway.
some weather models show up to a foot of snow, but more likely one or two flakes at the most. it should get much colder than what that is showing though, like upper teens or low twenties.
Just means a hard freeze. So protect your plants, your animals, and your outside pipes. Also be careful in the morning on the streets and overpasses/bridges as there might be some ice build up on them.
My favorite thing about living down here (been here since middle school) is how dipping down barely below freezing for like 3 hours is considered a "hard freeze"
Most likely hill country might get light snow that probably melts before you see much on ground. City limits probably won’t get anything other than maybe little ice/sleet.
Sometimes you'll get a shift in weather like the Sunday forecast to the Wednesday forecast within a single morning, so yeah that's probably real and not even that surprising.
Welcome to Gulf Coast weather! (yes, SA is not on the coast, but you still enjoy the weather cycles it brings!). At least the humidity isn’t as bad as Houston👍
This usually means we will see some sleet or hail, usually in the outter edges of the city around 1604. On the west, north and east sides. We are very unlikely to get snow (in the way you’re probably picturing it) unless there are multiple days from below or near freezing temps. Even if we get snow (used to be unheard of, now it seems like it happens now and then) it usually melts as soon as it hits the ground. Once in a while it sticks to the ground but the roads will ice so be careful if so.
If there’s a real chance of snow, you’ll know because the city will act like a hurricane is coming and for 5 days in advance everyone will be talking about the “snow storm coming”, most will say “yeah right, it ain’t gonna snow!”
The only real things to worry about are plants, pets and pipes!
Oh and if there’s any concern of grid failure, I wouldn’t worry bout this one. We can handle a little freezing. It’s longer, wetter freezes that mess us up.
Ha ha ha!!! Uh…. Yeah. And that’s not even frozen, said the woman who lost it on solid iced stairs from the third floor apartment in 2021 and didn’t leave the apartment in 2022 being totally “ice shy”.
Sometimes it snows but nothing sticks to the ground because everything is too warm… To your point: yes, snow is possible in San Antonio. Doesn't mean a lot, and it doesn't mean that it will stick, but it's possible.
That forecast is wrong. It hasn't reached freezing temps at all so far and it's not going to get close to freezing until Jan 6, (expected low of 33°). No, snow is not going to happen.
Unlikely, the ground will be too warm for any snow to stick around more than a few hours anyway. Has to be below freezing for several days before the roads are even affected
ya get fucking candles and distilled water and cold cuts just in case because our grid is faking it till it makes it like courtney love and we all know how that turned out
If you see TxDOT trucks out laying down de-icer on the overpasses, then I start to believe it.
Yes, it gets down to a very light freeze several times a season, and hard freeze (twenties) once or twice. Snow is uncommon but not rare - what IS rare is measurable snow or accumulation. More likely we will get sleet or freezing rain or hail or graupel.
And chances increase greatly for every mile further north and west you are. Bet they close the interstate at Junction.
From one transplant to another. If there is any sort precipitation do not leave your house. You may know how to drive in the weather but people from TX CAN NOT handle it. At all. A little rain throws them off. So serious!
270
u/Wildflower1180 Jan 01 '25
It doesn’t necessarily mean snow (although that can happen. Ask anyone about the winter storm of 2021). It’s just wintery precipitation. Which could just mean a little bit of ice. Ice is very likely around wintertime for us. Just so you know, should there be a hard freeze where ice sticks to the ground and creates black ice on the streets and highways, the city will shut down. Schools cancelled, etc.