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According to the National Weather Service, temperatures will warm up to near freezing along the I-10 corridor by daybreak Wednesday.

Warning Coordination Meteorologist Roger Erickson said precipitation is expected to start again after midnight, beginning in east Texas and Southeast Texas and work its way east during the day on Wednesday.

Precipitation may start as freezing rain or sleet along the I-10 corridor of Southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, but should transition to just rain during the day Wednesday.

Precipitation will end Wednesday evening, but another round of freezing rain is expected early Thursday morning.

Power outages update

Entergy’s reliability coordinator, MISO, has cancelled its order for power outages in the Entergy Texas region.

Shortly, after this, Entergy Texas began restoring customers who were affected by these outages back to service. However, winter weather in the forecast could cause additional outages over the next few days.

“We know how challenging these past couple of days have been for our customers and communities,” said Sallie Rainer, Entergy Texas president and CEO. “Our crews have made incredible progress to return several of our power plants to service which allows us to meet customer demand at this time. However, we are closely watching and preparing for additional winter weather tonight that will impact our service area.”

MISO, Entergy’s reliability coordinator, directed the company early Monday morning to initiate power outages as a last resort and in order to prevent a more extensive, prolonged power outage that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid. Since then, the company was able to bring generating units impacted by the severe weather back online and was cleared by MISO to begin fully serving the record-breaking load across southeast Texas.

If customers are still without power, but their neighbors have power, they can call 1-800-ENTERGY to report an outage.

“While we have come a long way since Monday morning, we are not out of the woods just yet,” said Rainer. “We have taken additional steps to prepare and protect our assets for the extreme cold beyond the measures implemented in advance of the winter storm earlier this week, in addition to returning power generation to service. Customers can help by continuing to conserve energy in the coming days.”

While Entergy Texas has been cleared to returned to normal operations, weather conditions still pose challenges in the coming days. These record-breaking temperatures can drive increased electricity usage, which can increase demand on the system and impact infrastructure. Customers can follow these easy steps to help reduce consumption and lower usage:

Heating can account for as much as 55% of your monthly electric bill. Setting the thermostat to 68 degrees in the winter is an easy way to reduce how much energy you use. Every degree above 68 on the thermostat can increase your bill by about 3%.