Bayou City froze its Butt Off

Houston likes to sell itself as a sweaty, sunburned, flip-flop town, but once upon a time the Bayou City froze its butt off — and the record still stands. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Houston was a brutal 5 degrees Fahrenheit, logged on January 18, 1930. Five degrees. In Houston. Let that sink in while you look at your shorts drawer.

This wasn’t some quick overnight dip where people woke up, complained, and moved on. The 1930 freeze was part of a larger Arctic invasion that parked itself over Texas and refused to leave. Temperatures stayed below freezing for multiple days, turning pipes into ticking time bombs, killing crops and shocking a city that wasn’t remotely built for cold weather. Back then, insulation was a suggestion, heaters were questionable and Houston learned the hard way that Mother Nature doesn’t care about geography.

While the exact hour-by-hour breakdown from 1930 isn’t perfectly documented, historical weather records confirm this was a sustained cold snap, not a fluke. Compare that to modern freezes like February 2021, when Houston stayed below freezing for about 44 straight hours and the city collectively lost its mind wit power outages, busted pipes and empty grocery shelves included.

The takeaway? Houston doesn’t get cold often, but when it does, it goes big. The 1930 freeze remains the gold standard of misery, proof that even a Gulf Coast city can briefly cosplay as the Midwest. So, next time Houston dips into the 30s and people panic, just remember: it’s been way worse and it lasted long enough to make history.