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<br />H1\''' II let ,11\ \ <br /> <br />Winter storms can paralyze Hays County and IH-35 connecting Austin to San Antonio, <br />creating hazardous travel conditions, causing major utility outages for extended periods and the I <br />potential for illness and loss of life. Generally, the winter storm season runs from late <br />November to mid-March. Hays County has an emergency plan in place to manage such a <br />weather situation providing shelter areas if necessary. Additionally, city crews are responsible <br />for maintaining transportation routes in the event of such weather. <br /> <br />Hays County and the City of San Marcos have sustained damage from ice storms. While <br />infrequent, they have affected the entire area restricting travel, interrupting electrical power <br />and causing water mains to break. The Hays County record low temperature is -2 degrees and <br />the mean minimum temperature in January is 36 degrees as recorded in the 2002-2003 Texas <br />Almanac. Hill Country storms can render treacherous driving conditions and result in broken <br />water mains and water damage associated with broken plumbing in residential and commercial <br />structures. <br /> <br />2.12 Severe Thunderstorms/Hail/Lightning <br /> <br />Hazard IdentificationlHail: <br />A hailstorm is an outgrowth of a severe thunderstorm in which balls or irregularly shaped <br />lumps of ice greater than 0.75 inches in diameter fall with rain. Early in the developmental <br />stages of a hailstorm, ice crystals form within a low-pressure front due to warm air rising <br />rapidly into the upper atmosphere and the subsequent cooling of the air mass. Frozen droplets <br />gradually accumulate on the ice crystals until, having developed sufficient weight, they fall as I <br />precipitation. <br /> <br />The size of hailstones is a direct function of the severity and size of the storm. High velocity <br />updraft winds are required to keep hail in suspension in thunderclouds. The strength of the <br />updraft is a function of the intensity of heating at the Earth's surface. Higher temperature <br />gradients relative to elevations above the surface result in increased suspension time and <br />hailstone size. <br /> <br />Although hailstorms can occur in almost every state, the Great Plains states, especially <br />northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming, receive more hail yearly than any other part <br />ofthe United States. According to the Weather Channel, hail in this area of the country is most <br />likely to fall late in the afternoon during the months of May and June and is often responsible <br />for extensive crop loss, property damage and livestock deaths. <br /> <br />Significant property and crop damage has been reported as a result of hailstorms in the in <br />Denver Colorado, eastern Texas-Oklahoma region. The Property Loss Research Bureau <br />indicates that a hailstorms occurring in April and May of 1995 in the Texas-Oklahoma region <br />maybe been the worst on record in terms of non-agricultural property losses. <br /> <br />Hazard IdentificationlLightning <br />Thunderstorm and lightning events are generated by atmospheric imbalance and turbulence I <br />due to the combination of the following conditions: unstable warm air rising rapidly into the <br /> <br />Ha~'s counl~', Texas <br />Miligalion Plan <br /> <br />81 <br />