February 2021 Texas Winter Storm
A prolonged Arctic outbreak brought snow, sleet, freezing rain, and extreme cold across Texas. Winter Storm Warnings covered the entire state on February 14, and the combined weather and infrastructure emergency affected all 254 counties.
Where this record is anchored
The map uses representative Texas observation points. The event affected all 254 counties and cannot be represented by a single point or narrow outline.
A defining Texas disaster record
The event linked statewide winter weather, prolonged cold, transportation disruption, loss of power, and loss of heat. It remains an important example of why statewide grid conditions and local household outages must be explained separately.
What happened
Condensed from the official records linked below.
- Freezing rain begins
Freezing drizzle and rain created hazardous travel across parts of North and Central Texas.
- Statewide warnings
Winter Storm Warnings were in effect across the entire state of Texas.
- Snow and extreme cold
Multiple rounds of winter precipitation combined with record and near-record cold across much of the state.
- Federal declaration
The federal major-disaster declaration for severe winter storms was dated February 19.
- Incident period ends
TDEM lists February 21 as the end of the DR-4586 incident period.
What this record does—and does not—show
This record summarizes official statewide and regional observations. It does not assign individual outage causes, determine utility responsibility, or reconcile competing estimates of deaths and economic losses.