The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for central Texas starting Saturday to Monday. There is also an extreme cold watch, with wind chills as low as 2 degrees below zero. As of 1 p.m., for Saturday, the chance of rain is 80%, with the high being 36 and low 19.
There is an expected accumulation of 1/10 to ¼ inch of ice across the warning areas, which includes Williamson county. Cold temperatures are expected Saturday night through Monday morning. Freezing rain may begin Saturday morning over the Hill country according to the Austin National Weather Service.
“They issued a winter storm watch, which means conditions are favorable for a winter storm to form,” AP Precalculus and AP Calculus AB teacher Weslee Copeland said. “But it’s not a warning yet unless they’re confident that it’s actually everything’s going to come and all these ingredients are going to come together.”
The Cedar Ridge UIL Academics Invitational got postponed to next Saturday Jan 31. Theatre’s Newsies shows for Saturday and Sunday are now cancelled due to LISD cancelled weekend activities. For boys soccer, their game against Glenn was originally today, but moved to yesterday due to the weather forecast.
“It turns [out] the weather was gonna be really, really bad on Friday,” senior Shiven Shah said. “So then we moved it to Thursday because the weather was gonna be a lot better on Thursday.”
According to Leander ISD’s inclement weather protocol, deciding on whether school will be open will be reached by 5:30 a.m. or earlier the day of the incident. They make their decision based on local emergency consortia, information on road conditions, amount of ice, building conditions, temperature and weather predictions.
“If you had asked me yesterday or the day before, I would have said 75/25 no school on Monday, today I’m leaning towards 50/50,” Copeland said. “I think we’re definitely going to see a very, very cold stance.”
Leander ISD posted an announcement on Instagram, a reminder of preparing for weather protocol. They advised to prepare for power outages, insulate pipes, keep pets warm, dry and indoors.
“I think the most dangerous thing about the upcoming storms is actually the temperatures, and not necessarily that,” Copeland said. “I would say prioritize, you know, staying warm, preparing for possible power allergies. So make sure you have food stocked up, things like that, it may be difficult to travel and then just kind of be on the lookout for, if you have pets, make sure they’re indoors.”