If you’ve lived here in Texas for any amount of time, chances are that you’ve heard the saying “If you don’t like the weather here, give it a minute and it will change”. The weather here in Central Texas certainly has thrown everyone for a loop and caught many off-guard.
In February, we saw our coldest weather ever. We experienced 164 straight hours of below-freezing temperatures, saw record snowfall in the Austin area, and the financial losses that came with this winter storm were staggering. Many of us expected the cold air and the chance of snow, so we took our cues from our local weather forecasters who reminded us to cover exposed plants and pipes, and bring in our pets - and we did. What we didn’t expect was the rain, followed by the snow, followed by another round of rain and more snow. We were not sure what to expect after everything melted, given that every tree and shrub surrounding the vineyard lost every bit of foliage. Everything looked “dead”. We held our breath hoping to see some buds, but that time came and passed. Our largest vines started to bud in mid-April, which made us feel some relief, but for the rest of the vines - nothing.
Driving through the neighborhoods in our area, we see a lot of the trees that looked dead back in the Spring, full of life again, which makes us hopeful that come next spring, our vines that did not bud this season, will in fact, bud next season. In the meantime, we will still continue to give them lots of love and good care, and get them ready for another winter should this type of weather happen again.
Here’s to hoping that the upcoming seasons are better to our vines than the last one.
Cheers,
Rochelle
P.S. - If you want to read up on the historic winter weather event we had in February, check out the February 2021 Historical Winter Storm Event for South-Central Texas published by the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio office.