It was Christmas Eve, 2004. As families gathered in their homes to celebrate, snow clouds gathered in south Texas skies. Weather forecasters called for wintry precipitation with a slight chance of snow.
Like so many Gulf Coast Texans, I'd seen these sensationalist forecasts fall through too many times and figured if we got any snow at all, it would likely be a few flakes spotted in some remote field by a farmer or at best, a powdery dusting like I'd seen a few rare times in my life. I also recalled that the few scant sprinklings we'd had always came in January. Even though Christmas cards portrayed smoke curling from the chimneys of snowbound homes nestled among white tipped evergreens, we'd never in history had snow for Christmas. Even the national weather map a couple of weeks back showed a 0% chance for a white Christmas in my area. Nope, it just wouldn't happen
