A Houston meteorologist investigates the connection between hurricanes and snowfall in the city. While recent events may suggest a pattern, the long-term data reveals a different story.
Looking for a job? Rodeo Houston is hiring for the 2025 season at this weekend’s job fair. Snow in Houston is a rare treat. On average, we see measurable snowfall about once every 4.5 years. Similarly, while we gear up for hurricane season each year, Houston only takes a direct hit from a hurricane about once every 5.5 years. Hurricane Beryl, a Category 1 storm, made landfall near Houston just this week. We also got snow just this week.
A similar pattern happened in 2021, an inch of snow devastated our region, but you might also recall we had a snow event that same year, just over half an inch on December 8. Naturally, people notice these coincidences and ask me, “Does it always snow after a hurricane?” When I dug into the records, the answer was… Let’s explore what’s behind these occasional correlations: Our minds don’t like uncertainty, so we instinctively draw patterns from what we observe. Hurricanes and snow are a great example of this. After Hurricane Beryl hit, several of my friends confidently said, “We’re going to get snow this winter!” Why? Because in their minds, hurricanes and snow go hand in hand, it’s happened before, so it must happen again. And this year, they were right! But it doesn’t always work out this way. Think about your friends in Southern California. They know the San Andreas Fault will eventually cause a massive earthquake, but because no one knows when, people start wondering, “Maybe there’s a severe drought,” or they’ll say, “Big earthquakes always follow droughts.” Or if there’s heavy flooding, they might say, “Big earthquakes always follow flooding.” We all make connections like this, between weather and daily life because our brains crave certainty. It’s just how we cope with the unknown.After it snowed on Tuesday, I received several emails asking, “Does it always snow after a hurricane hits?” I thought that question would be perfect for my newsletter. So on Wednesday, I started looking up every hurricane that has hit southeast Texas and the years it snowed in Houston. By Thursday, I was ready to start writing. The chart below includes all hurricanes that have made landfall in southeast Texas since 1875. I counted 22 hurricane strikes. I didn’t include tropical storms, though storms like Allison in 2001, Claudette in 2003, and Imelda in 2019 were certainly memorable. None of those tropical storms were followed by snow in the winters before or after. In the chart, years marked in purple indicate winters with snow either before or after a hurricane. What really stands out is that the hurricanes Jerry in 1989, Ike in 2008, Harvey in 2017, Nicholas in 2021, and Beryl in 2024, all had snow during the adjacent winter! No wonder people think hurricanes and snow are connected.Years there was a hurricane with snow before or after the storm hit were associated with snow, about 36% of the time. For example, the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Category 3 Alicia in 1983 weren’t followed by snowy winters. And how would you have liked living in Houston from 1941 to 1949, when the city endured... So while it’s a fascinating coincidence that recent hurricanes and snow seem to go together, the long-term data shows it’s not a reliable pattern, just one of those quirks of Houston’s weather history. By my count, Houston has seen snow in 30 different years since 1895. While there were years with multiple snow events, I’m only counting the years themselves. The first thing that stands out is that snow is much more common in Houston than hurricanes and that’s definitely a good thing! Overall, snow and hurricanes only coincide 27% of the time. While it’s a fascinating connection, it’s not a frequent one. years it's snowed in Houston. The purple are the years a hurricane hit too either the winter before or after.
HURRICANE SNOW HOUSTON WEATHER PATTERNS CLIMATE
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