As a brutal ice blast gripped much of the United States, Texans looking out over frozen lakes were confronted with something that looked tornadic but rose silently from the water. Columns of vapor, quickly dubbed “steamnadoes,” spun up from the surface, startling residents and even some forecasters who were already stretched tracking a deadly winter storm. The eerie vortices became one of the most surreal images of a cold wave that has killed at least 25 people nationwide and left Almost 200 m Americans under extreme cold alerts.
The spectacle over North and Central Texas lakes captured the tension of this moment: a rare, visually dramatic phenomenon appearing in the middle of a life threatening outbreak of snow, ice and subzero wind chills. I see those swirling plumes as a reminder that even in a hyper monitored weather era, the atmosphere still finds ways to surprise, and that the same conditions that create viral videos can also expose deep vulnerabilities in infrastructure and public safety.
From quiet lake to viral vortex
Residents around Lake Lewisville watched what looked like a ghostly waterspout rise from the surface as Arctic air poured into North Texas. Video of the rotating column, shared widely online, shows a tight plume of vapor twisting upward from the lake before fading back into the frigid air, a scene later confirmed as a so called Steamnado over Lake Lewisville. A separate clip captured another spinning column over Lake Limestone, where onlookers watched a narrow funnel of steam rise from the water’s surface into low clouds as the cold air mass deepened.
The Lake Limestone footage, filmed by Randy Denzer and shared with local outlets, shows the vortex forming, tightening and then dissipating within minutes, a textbook example of how fast these features can appear and vanish. Viewers were urged to Check the Lake Limestone video to see the tight rotation and dense plume that led some to mistake it for a waterspout or even a small tornado. The lakes themselves sit within a broader North Texas landscape that stretches from the Dallas Fort Worth suburbs toward places like Plano and beyond, an area that has been hammered by ice covered roads and freezing fog.
What a “steamnado” really is
Despite the ominous nickname, meteorologists stress that these vortices are not tornadoes and, in this case, not even classic waterspouts. The National Weather Service office in North Texas described them as swirling clouds of steam that form when extremely cold, dry air passes over relatively warmer lake water, creating intense temperature contrasts that drive rapid evaporation and condensation. In a social media update, The National Weather Service said it had received Several reports of “steamnadoes” on lakes across North and Central Texas, including one on Lake Lew.
Local forecasters quoted in regional coverage emphasized that these Swirling columns are “completely harmless” and tend to last only a few minutes, even if they look “scary looking” to people seeing them for the first time. Seeing a swirling cloud forming over lakes, one meteorologist explained, is essentially watching steam rise and get pulled into a small vortex as frigid air flows across the warmer surface, a process that can be enhanced when freezing fog and low clouds are already in place over North Texas. That reassurance was echoed in reports that framed the steamnadoes as a curiosity within a much more dangerous pattern of ice and snow affecting Swirling clouds over the lake.
Texas spectacle, national emergency
The steam plumes over Texas lakes unfolded as a much larger and more dangerous system, Winter Storm Fern, spread snow, sleet and freezing rain from Texas all the way to New England. Forecasters at NOAA’s National Weather Service warned that a powerful Arctic outbreak and a “dangerous January 2026 winter storm” were bringing extreme cold to a large portion of the United States, with Forecasters tracking heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain. A separate national briefing described a powerful and expansive winter storm carving across the eastern two thirds of the United States, disrupting travel and threatening infrastructure in dozens of states across the United States.
By the time the cold wave peaked, Almost 200 m Americans were under some form of extreme cold alert, stretching from along the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, as reported in a national roundup of the storm’s impacts on Americans. Winter Storm Fern has been described as crippling the U.S. with record snow, catastrophic ice and mass power outages ahead of a life threatening deep freeze, a footprint that extended from the Plains into the Midwest and Northeast according to detailed summaries of Winter Storm Fern. Even Florida, which escaped the worst of the ice, was warned that the system’s massive footprint meant its effects would be felt from Texas all the way to New England, with forecasters in the Southeast noting that Even Florida could see severe storms on the system’s warm side.
Deadly cold behind the viral clips
Behind the mesmerizing videos, the human toll of the storm has been severe. Reports from across the country say at least 25 deaths have been linked to the massive winter storm, with Bitter cold gripping much of the nation and Many communities across the Midwest, South and Northeast waking up to subzero temperatures and dangerous wind chills on Monday, as detailed in a national update on the Bitter conditions. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office said at least eight people were found dead outside as temperatures plunged, part of a tally that also included deaths in other states such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to a regional breakdown that began, starkly, with the phrase In New York City when describing the mayor’s New York City statement.
Retail and travel disruptions have added to the sense of crisis. One account of the storm’s economic fallout noted that the Winter Storm Fern death toll had risen to 18 as major chains such as Walmart and Kroger were forced to close stores, 11,000 flights were canceled and STEAMNADOS were reported sweeping parts of the US, with the report describing TERRIFYING “steamnadoes” spotted amid snow, sleet and freezing rain in several states affected by Winter Storm Fern. National weather coverage described cities across multiple regions as “covered in snow” with freezing temperatures and icy roads, a picture reinforced by a live storm blog that was Updated at key intervals in EST as Mon January brought new rounds of Updated warnings.
North Texas on ice, and what comes next
Closer to where the steamnadoes formed, North Texas has been dealing with treacherous roads, power outages and a lingering risk of freezing fog. Local reports from the Dallas Fort Worth area described Plano’s Chisholm Trail as “iced over” as the Dallas North Tollway and other major routes turned slick, with one community update noting that By Hannah Johnson, writing in the late afternoon, authorities expected roads to see major improvement by Tuesday but warned that freezing fog was likely again by Wednesday morning, according to a forecast shared in By Hannah Johnson. The same update underscored that the National Weather Service expected temperatures to remain below freezing for extended periods, prolonging the risk of black ice even as precipitation tapered off.
Within that icy landscape, the steamnadoes became a kind of visual shorthand for the intensity of the cold, appearing in local TV segments and social feeds alongside footage of jackknifed trucks and frozen interstates. One broadcast urged viewers to WATCH the Steamnado that popped up over Lake Lewisville on Sat, using the viral clip to explain how a tremendous amount of steam can be generated when Arctic air passes over open water, a segment later shared through a dedicated WATCH link. Another online post encouraged people to Check out this cool video of a “steamnado” that formed over Lake Limestone, again crediting Randy Denzer and highlighting how quickly the Steamnad feature spun up and faded in the frigid air, a moment preserved in a widely shared Check reel.
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