Soraya Santos
Audio By Carbonatix
Dallas’ highly anticipated weather event is upon us. Since early this morning, the Dallas area has been experiencing moderate snowfall and freezing rain, with similar conditions expected to last through tomorrow morning. Despite forecasts that temperatures will be above freezing by this weekend, Dallasites did not miss the chance to stock up at grocery stores last night in case of a Snowpocalypse II.
Last night, Soraya Santos posted photos to Facebook of lines at Aldi and Walmart that wrapped into the stores’ aisles.
“DALLAS IS FREAKING OUTTTTT!! Y’all, it’s just gonna be COLD. There’s not going to be a BLIZZARD! I made the mistake of forgetting to pick up milk yesterday, so I thought I’d stop at the store real quick on my way home. Well… this was the scene at Aldi and Walmart Y’ALL DOIN TOO MUCH”
User u/bigbugzman on Reddit posted a photo of empty shelves at Target on the r/Dallas page.
Posts from the dallas
community on Reddit
u/Tiger_Miner_DFW wrote: “It’s gonna be back in the 50s by Saturday. Some people, man.”
u/dallasmav40 echoed the sentiment: “Really makes you wonder if that many people don’t have 1-2 days of food in their fridge/pantry.”
u/TheSpivack took the other side: “Can you blame them? We might get a few inches of snow over the course of two days before it warms up again”
Even the stores themselves are responding. As of today, Kroger is limiting quantities of toilet paper that can be purchased online to three items per customer. In 2022, we wrote a story about H-E-B‘s Houston division president, Scott McClelland, telling a reporter for LinkedIn that the store bypassed distribution centers and ordered deliveries directly from toilet paper manufacturers in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. The store also temporarily limited their bread options to white, wheat and hot dog buns.
In July 2024, researcher Cony M. Ho published a paper entitled “Stormy sales: The influence of weather expectations on FMCG consumption.” FMCG stands for fast-moving consumer goods.
In the paper, he found that inclement weather forecasts significantly increased the consumption of FMCGs, based on data from instant ramen sales in Taiwan. It appears Dallas yields the same results for this year’s brief time in the snow, whether it be our memories of years past or simply human nature.
