This should really be titled “Why Amarillo Can’t Handle Snow or Too Much of Any Type of Precipitation.”
The Panhandle of Texas is a unique place. Many people associate a good portion of Texas with desert, but that’s just not the case. The Panhandle can have desert like temperatures in the summer, but it can also feel like the Arctic Circle in the winter. These last few days, it’s been more on the arctic tundra side. The problem with this though is that the city is built to receive a minimal amount of rain and people around here don’t know what to do when it snows – especially when it snows like this:
This is a picture of my front yard and drive way. In front my house is typically a very busy street. On this day, you couldn’t tell where the yard ended and the street began. I don’t know what the final depth of the snow was, but it was deep. Some places were estimated to get 12-15 inches to give you an idea. Now, when this happens in Amarillo, you have a major problem when the snow begins to melt because the drainage system is filled with snow and ice and the water has nowhere to go, so the streets turn into lakes of water. This water will most definitely freeze into ice if the temperatures stay around freezing. After the city comes through to clear the streets, it looks like this:
See that wall of snow in the turn lane? That wall of snow is all the way down our street. That wall of snow means that I can’t turn left into my driveway. We literally have to go to the end of the block and do a U-turn where they cleared a hole in the wall of snow. There’s also a mountain of snow higher than that in my yard from where my husband and his friend shoveled our driveway. Because of the direction our house sits, it might be two months before that mountain of snow melts.
As I write this, it actually started snowing and sleeting about an hour ago. So, it looks like we’re in for more. I just hope it’s not as deep as this last round. The snow is fine sometimes, but not when we get this much. Here’s another aftermath photo. I thought it was a little ironic.
