An unusually late-season cold front has sent a strong burst of wind barreling across Texas this weekend. Now, lights are going out across San Antonio as gale-force wind gusts sweep the city Sunday night, March 15.
With winds hitting Texas reaching strong force, more than 12,000 homes and businesses across San Antonio are without power as CPS Energy crews work to handle downed tree limbs and power lines. The number has continued to rise since early Sunday evening, climbing to 12,053 just after 9 p.m.
The outages span a stretch of the city, going out as far west as Highway 90 and Highway 211, up toward Grey Forest north of Loop 1604 and southeast down to Highway 181 and I-37 split near Brookside.
The biggest outages, however, are near Prue and Babcock Roads – where roughly 4,000 residents are in the dark – and along Loop 410 near the Mission Del Lago neighborhood, which was built on the Southside. But there were roughly 50 active outages at the time of reporting Sunday night, many of which CPS Energy officials marked as “under assessment.”
In a post on X, CPS Energy addressed the outage: “CPS Energy crews are monitoring conditions and are prepared to respond safely as needed. Due to the high winds, restoration times may take longer than usual while crews work to ensure repairs can be made safely.”
It may have felt like winter was over in Texas. But a strong cold front continues to barrel across the state at the tail end of the weekend, sending temperatures plummeting back into the 40s. Just as spring crops began to emerge from the Texas soil, freezing evening temperatures could impact the season.
“The strong cold front pushing across South Central Texas earlier this afternoon through this evening, brings a much cooler airmass across South Central Texas,” the National Weather Service Austin-San Antonio office warned in a special weather statement. “Monday morning`s lows over parts of the Hill Country and southern Edwards Plateau are expected to drop into the low to mid 30s with wind chills into the low to mid 20s.”
But it’s not just the cold air alone that is having an immediate impact on San Antonio or the surrounding cities. This sudden influx of arctic air hitting more stagnant hot weather is creating strong bursts of wind. The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for most of Central and South Texas, noting wind speeds averaging 20 to 30 mph and wind gusts reaching up to 55 mph.
For context, strong gale winds are rated between 47 and 54 mph and can cause minor structural damage, ripping up chimney covers, roofing or television antennas. Whole gale winds are between winds run between 55 and 63 mph (with 58 mph gusts triggering a severe thunderstorm warning) and can cause “considerable structural and vegetative damage.” At these speeds, small trees can be knocked over.
This article originally published at Over 12K without power in San Antonio as cold from storms in with 45 mph winds.