A little over ten days ago several inches of snow blanketed parts of the South Plains and many of us are looking forward to waking up to this winter wonderland on Christmas Day. While one can hope, will it actually happen? After checking data sources, it’s possible that there could be some sort of precipitation on Christmas, however, with it being so far out things can still change.
Our precipitation outlook from December 24th through the 30th shows about at 50% chance of above average precipitation, but the temperature outlook for this same time period shows West Texas having a 33% chance of above average temperatures.
However, if there happens to be a white Christmas,Dianah Ascencio from the TXDOT Lubbock District says they are prepared to get the main roadways pre-treated and cleared off.
“We do have a system of pretreating. We have tier one roadways which are major corridors. Here in Lubbock County it’s US 84, Loop 289, Spur 327, the Marsha Sharp Freeway, and I-27. As we get out to some of the other counties surrounding Lubbock, some of their tier one roadways are some of their state highways and US highways. In some communities it’s even FM roadways. So those are some of the roadways in their communities that we make it a point to pretreat those.”
If the roadways become too hazardous it is best to stay off them, but if you must travel Ascencio recommends taking your time, driving to conditions, and checking local sources.
“Listen to the radio, or the television, or get online and check the weather conditions. Also, get on drivetexas.org to see what the road conditions actually are. So if they are taking that chance to travel, at least they’re informed. Certainly we would hope that people would delay any kind of travel when winter weather is expected, but sometimes we know that you just can’t help it and you have to travel.”