February 23, 2010: Winter Weather Across East Texas

Overview

A late-season winter storm affected portions of East Texas and Northwest Louisiana which began in the late morning and lasted through the evening of Tuesday February 23, 2010. Cold arctic air filtered into the region late Monday and early Tuesday ahead of an upper level disturbance moving out of the southwestern United States. The upper disturbance was weakening as it progressed east and was eventually phased into a larger scale upper level trough over the eastern United states. However,before it weakened significantly, there was enough lift and moisture to dump up to 4" of snow across portions of Cherokee County and northern Nacogdoches County Texas. Temperatures started the day in the mid to upper 30's across the region but slowly fell as evaporative cooling and snow falling into the warmer air cooled the lowest 1000 feet of atmosphere. Other areas in Smith, Rusk, Gregg, and Angelina Counties reported anywhere from 1-3" of snow which quickly melted due to warmer ground temperatures. Numerous accidents were reported where the heaviest snow occurred in Cherokee and Nacogdoches counties as well as several in the Tyler area.

Locations in Northwest Louisiana warmed too quickly into the lower 40's during the day Tuesday and the evaporative cooling process was not enough to cool many locations to a level which would support the amounts of snow which occurred across East Texas. However, light snow and snow flurries occurred and some trace amounts of snow were reported in the Shreveport area as well as in Natchitoches Louisiana.

*Snow Accumulations from February 23, 2010*
TEXAS
LOCATION	AMOUNT
Alto	4 inches
3 miles SW of Alto	4 inches
Center	0.5 inch
Cushing	4 inches
Henderson	0.5 inch
Jacksonville	3 inches
Lufkin	1 inch
Mount Enterprise	2 inches
Tyler	2 inches
LOUISIANA
Natchitoches	Trace
Shreveport	Trace

Radar image combined with surface temperatures shows most of East Texas is having snow or a snow/rain mix. The rain/snow line wavered during the day but stayed primarily over Deep East Texas. Areas in Louisiana stayed primarily rain, but eventually changed to stay for the final 2-3 hours of the event.

Snow pack on visible satellite imagery on February 24

Visible image of the snow cover across East Texas.

A picture from Jacksonville, TX. Photo is courtesy of KLTV.

A picture from Rusk, TX, taken around 6pm. Photo is courtesy of KLTV.

A picture from Appleby, TX, in northern Nacogdoches County. Photo is courtesy of KLTV.

Snow falling in Tyler, TX, around 4pm. Photo courtesy of KLTV.