Convenience Big Store: As freezing temperatures grip Houston, stay informed with our live updates

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J.R. Gonzales
Senior Digital Production Editor
john.gonzales@chron.com

Alright, folks. Are you ready for what's coming this afternoon? Are the pipes wrapped? Plants covered or brought inside? Liquor cabinet restocked?

Maybe you're like me and you have a few errands to run this morning. Hopefully I can get everything done by noon without catching a speeding ticket.

For those of you who will set out to do some last-minute, weather-related shopping tomorrow, Megan Munce has an article on what you might need if you're making final preparations. I didn't see it in her article, but I would suggest getting a little digital weather station. I have one here at the Lindale Park bureau and I'm curious to see just how quickly the temperature will plunge this afternoon. You can find them at major hardware stores.

You might also be wondering how plumbers are preparing for the possible avalanche of calls they could see this holiday weekend. Yvette Orozco and Robert Avery checked in with one company to see how things are going.

Funny thing is, things will be quite pleasant before the front gets here. Skies will be cloudy with highs in the upper 60s. Expect lows in the teens once the front sweeps through.

Today's top story

Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Staff Photographer

Harris County is moving people into permanently affordable homes.

The Harris County Community Land Trust has begun moving families into permanently affordable homeownership by purchasing the land a home sits on. That both cuts down the homebuyer's purchase price dramatically and stabilizes the family's tax bills.

Five other stories to read today

Houston freeze live updates: Waking up to sub-freezing temps.

The city, like much of the nation, saw a steep drop in temperatures along with wind gusts up to 40 miles per hour Thursday as what many meteorologists called an incredibly rare winter storm blew through Texas.

Got juice? Power banks get smarter, heavier and pricier.

If you received mobile electronics as presents this holiday season, congratulations! Now that you've added more batteries that need to be charged to your digital tools, let Dwight Silverman suggest just one more.

2022's U.S. climate disasters: A tale of too much rain – and too little. [Opinion]

The year will be remembered across the U.S. for its devastating flooding and storms – and also for its extreme heat waves and droughts, writes Shuang-Ye Wu.

The Independence Bowl is one last show for UH's Tune-Dell duo.

The chemistry built over three seasons between Clayton Tune and Nathaniel Dell has been on display on almost a weekly basis.

Music critic Joey Guerra's 10 albums of 2022: Beyoncé, Bad Bunny and Megan Thee Stallion.

Music in 2022 can be classified two ways: before and after Beyoncé's "Renaissance." But there was plenty of other great music this year, from thrilling pop to hip-hop to experimental Latin visionaries. These are the ones that stayed with me.

One last thing ...

How does one get into the Christmas spirit? It sometimes isn't so easy, according to this Leon Hale column that appeared in the Chronicle on this day in 1988.

That's it from me this year. For the rest of 2022, Morning Report will go into "weekend mode." When regular programming returns the first week of January, there will be one teeny, tiny change to this email.

Starting next year I won't be republishing front pages from years ago. I have some new duties here at the Chronicle, which don't leave me much time for hunting down interesting front pages to bring out. I will continue to republish old columns, maybe even more often, because readers seem to like that.

With all that said, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone!

— J.R., who hopes readers make it through the freeze with no problems