Surreal photos from Texas’ sub-zero weather: A frozen fish tank and icicles on a ceiling fan

A winter storm brought record breaking temperatures to Texas this week, with Sunday seeing thermometers drop to lows of 0F (-18C).

As many as three million Texans were still without power or heating on Wednesday, due to the continued surge in demand — and ongoing power outages.

Temperatures have not been so low in Texas in decades, with thermometers usually recording around 59F (15C) at this time of year in the city of Dallas, where on Monday, highs of 14F (-10C) were instead forecast.

The freezing temperatures have led to extraordinary scenes across the state, with thousands of sea turtles stranded on South Padre island, to frozen fountains — and even frozen fish tanks.

One TikTok user who shared the frozen fish tank on Tuesday, wrote: “This is what it’s like like living in Texas right now. [I’m] literally in shock, wow”.

Thomas Black, from Dallas, witnessed 4-foot icicles hanging from a ceiling fan in the hallway of his apartment, and shared a number of viral images and videos to Twitter this week, which have included a frozen swimming pool he was able to stand on, and water pipes bursting from his building.

He told Yahoo News on Wednesday: “Texans just aren’t used to this sort of thing, so of course there’s going to be panic just like there was at the beginning of Covid, If you go to the grocery store right now, the entire meat section is gone, the whole entire produce section has gone.”

“The leadership has failed us on all fronts,” Mr Black added. “It certainly is worrisome.”

Another Dallas resident, Brandon Friedman, shared a picture of a bathtub of frozen water on Tuesday, and wrote: “That’s how it’s going in Dallas”.

At least 21 people have lost their lives to the storm, with weather related fatalities recorded in Tennessee, Texas, Kentucky and Louisiana.

And in Houston on Sunday, nearly 120 road crashes were reported in a single day, with a pile-up on a major highway near Oklahoma City causing several lorries to catch fire.

Texas’s transportation department has struggled to deploy snow ploughs on many other highways, which have been blocked.

As Charles Peek, a Weather Channel reporter and storm chaser, recorded on Wednesday morning, the Texas side of State Line Avenue was blocked with snow, while the Arkansas side was free for vehicles.

He wrote on Twitter: “Stateline Ave this morning in Texarkana at the same location as yesterday afternoon. Both the Texas and Arkansas sides are snow covered this morning.”

Snow was also seen covering the beach in Galveston, Texas, where temperatures typically hit highs of 62F (17C) in February. On Thursday, highs of 35F (2C) are expected.

The record-breaking temperatures led to Galveston County officials to request a refrigerated truck to be stationed outside the medical examiner’s office, in response to an increase in deaths caused by the bad weather, the Eyewitness News reported on Wednesday.

Further snow and ice is forecast until at least Friday across Texas and a swathe of the United States, the National Weather Service has said, with emergency weather warnings already in place.