The weather outside is frightful.

That’s an understatement. It’s 50 degrees and cloudy. In Texas, where anything under 80 degrees is cause for alarm, it just doesn’t get more frightful than that. Unless, of course, we speak of the one thing that scares the wits out of any Texan.

No, not beans in chili. Not Blue Bell recalls. Not even a preference for In-N-Out over Whataburger.

It’s the car-crashing, education-interfering, frightening yet fascinating white powder.

Not that white powder. The one that comes out of the sky.

A mere 10 percent chance of snow is met with sand-lined streets, plans for a day off, and daydreams about the good old days of 100 degrees.

When it starts snowing, we lose control of our lives. Precipitation with the diameter of a hair is now in charge. Here, at the sight of one snowflake, school, work, and life is canceled.

And if it snows for 20 seconds, the entire state shuts down.

Us Texans, naturally, freak out when cold weather comes along. That’s what happens when you’re used to four kinds of seasons: Kind of Hot, Hot, Really Hot, and Cold Fronts. We’re not well acquainted with that white, powdery stuff (still not that white stuff), and we don’t know how to handle ourselves when we wake up and can’t find our cars under the millimeter of white dust on the windshield.

Not to mention the cold. 30 degrees might as well be -100 degrees. We can feel the frostbite setting in as we run outside to get the mail then dash back in like a polar bear is chasing us.

But once the snow melts away, it’s back to normal. Trees resume their flowering in January, that one guy who always wears shorts is out and about again, and work and school go on as usual. But we are scarred for life. The snowstorm of Year X will forever be tucked away in our minds as we shiver under six blankets instead of our usual 16 while the temperature climbs back up to 60 degrees.

We’re still cold, but what keeps us warm inside is knowing summer is on its way, and pretty soon we’ll be relishing in the mild temperatures of July.

But for now, another blanket, please.