Texarkana Pro-Tip: Buy milk prior to January 13th.

Okay, this needs to be addressed because I feel like I'm in Bizarro World. 

The entire ArkLaTex area has lost its collective minds over the weather. Last week--that would be circa December 2024--some official web site for the Arkansas weather guys posted that it would be "28 degrees colder than normal" in this area around the 14th of January 2025. Yes, they were predicting the weather three weeks in advance. Even if you live some place with consistent January weather, like Phoenix, I'm sure you can see issue with this. Right? 

An hour after this post, the Arkansas weather guys issued a retraction. Oops! Please excuse the typo. The temperatures in the ArkLaTex area during the week of January 14 would hover around 28 degrees. Probably overnight. Just like most every January on record. 

Dang! If I had those kind of prediction skills, I could be a weather guy too! 

But, with too much time to surf Facebook and not enough intellectual curiosity, the masses have turned this into Freezeaccolypse. Even with others correcting them (pst! It was a typo and immediately fixed. And you, know... JANUARY), the wackjobs are running around shouting something about Texarkana being the epicenter for the Second Coming. There are all sorts of old-timer tips to help some of us newcomers cope: Like be sure to get your bread, milk and eggs before the 14th. 

I guess we can serve Jesus French toast if we are lucky enough.  

I should also note, the first January we spent here, it never got above 35 degrees. I didn't own a winter coat until the following December, when, coincidentally, it got down to 7 degrees for a couple of nights and yet, there were no reports of frozen bodies. Last winter, the Facebook complainers kept going on about how warm January was--and it was, right after the snowstorm and follow-up ice storm impeded life for two weeks. 

It seems to me, if you've lived here more than one January, there is no reason to complain that January is cold. It also seems to me there is an entire section of population who completely don't understand the concept of seasons. And yet, they didn't grow up in Phoenix.