Lubbock’s Long-Awaited First Freeze Still Missing in Action!

Have you noticed something missing? 

We're Late

It may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing, but Lubbock's first freeze of the season is now a couple of weeks overdue. I hate to say anything about it in fear of Old Man Winter walloping us out of spite, but we should have had a freeze and lost all the leaves off the trees by now. A good, hard freeze also helps local farmers with thier cotton crops, so this is something that is a bit bothersome around here.

The Wager

If you were a betting person, the best bet for a first freeze each year is Halloween in the early morning hours. Historically we hit our first freeze on average on October 31st. We did see a little indication of that, because the coldest it's been this year was on October 31st, but we only dipped down to 38 degrees. That temperature is certainly nippy and a little uncomfortable, but not quite what is needed for agriculture.

The Freeze

So when will it finally freeze? It could still be a couple of weeks depending on certain cold fronts. This type of shift in the weather will slightly modify life around Lubbock in mostly imperceptible ways.  Simply put, if a farmer is late getting crops to market, he's spending money later. The same would go for people who work in gins and so on. It just shifts things to another time. As for the rest of life in Lubbock, it just means the leaves are on the trees a little longer and few more weeks of green grass.