JUAREZ, Mexico (NEXSTAR) — The pictures look like they could be from Chicago or even Canada, but winter snowfall images captured over Valentine’s Day weekend were actually taken near our southern border with Mexico.
A bitter winter storm that blanketed much of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana with snow also sneaked south of the Rio Grande this week, dumping visible snow on parts of northern Mexico.
It’s fairly common for flakes of snow to stick in Juarez, Mexico, in winter, but a photographer for Nexstar’s Border Report project captured residents coping with more than a few flakes this week.
The National Weather Service office in nearby El Paso, Texas, reported the overnight low on Valentine’s Day hit 14 degrees, breaking a record set in 1895. On Sunday, Nexstar’s KTSM reported that several semitrailer trucks were involved in a pileup on I-10 east of El Paso.
The Washington Post’s Andrew Freedman shared a “shocking” photo of just how widespread the snowy conditions were around the Gulf of Mexico.
The storm was part of a massive system that brought snow, sleet and freezing rain to the southern Plains and was spreading across the Ohio Valley and to the Northeast.
“We’re living through a really historic event going on right now,” Jason Furtado, a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma told The Associated Press, pointing to all of Texas under a winter storm warning and the extent of the freezing temperatures.
The southern Plains had been gearing up for the winter weather for the better part of the weekend. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for all of the state’s 254 counties. Abbott, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson each activated National Guard units to assist state agencies with tasks, including rescuing stranded drivers.
The forecast calls for warming through the week in Juarez, but much of Texas will continue to stay cold and dip into the freezing range overnight through the week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
