His name was Kingston.

He wasn’t quite as rude a guest as Uri and he didn’t stay nearly as long, but he was bad enough.

But relief is on the horizon and - depending on when you’re reading this - it may already be here.

Winter Storm Kingston made its way through Kingfisher County early in the week, leaving in its wake a light layer of ice, varying amounts of snow and sustained sub-freezing temperatures that lasted for several days.

The storm hit Kingfisher early Tuesday morning with the precipitation.

One-half inch of snow was reported by local weather observer Steve Loftis, but there was also a glaze of freezing rain and sleet.

Oklahoma Department of Transportation crews worked to keep the major highways as clear as possible, though there were some local wrecks reported.

Noneofthelocalwrecks, according to Oklahoma Highway Patrol reports, included major injuries.

Statewide, during the 34 hours from midnight Tuesday until 10 a.m. Wednesday, the OHP reported 251 non-injury accidents, 77 injury accidents and no fatalities. There were also 273 motorist assists.

[KT&FP Staff Photo] Side roads in Kingfisher were less desirable, though still manageable throughout the week.

The temperatures, however, were far below desirable.

As of 11 a.m. Friday, the air temperature in Kingfisher was 14 degrees according to the Mesonet.

At that time, temperatures in Kingfisher had been below freezing for 85 consecutive hours.

It was predicted that Kingfisher would have a high of 32 degrees on Friday (which would have come after press time of this edition).

If the temperature didn’t hit 32, then the county will experience more than 100 straight hours below freezing.

The low temperature reported by Loftis for at least three consecutive days (Feb.

19-21) was in the single digits. Wind chills reached well below zero at various times during the week.

It was enough for Kingfi sher County schools to not take any chances.

All local school districts as well as Chisholm Trail Technology Center, called off classes Tuesday and Wednesday.

All returned to school Thursday.

The plains of Oklahoma were only a small part of the United States that were affected by Kingston.

Parts of southern Kansas and Missouri reported 6 to 12 inches of snow.

Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia - among several other states - also saw measurable amounts of snow from the storm.

Kingston made its way into the northeast at the end of the week, packing the punch of strong northerly winds for those residents.

Locally, there were no major issues reported.

Kingfisher City Manager Jim Thomas said everything was “peaceful” as far as the city’s infrastructure was concerned.

Cimarron Electric Cooperative warned customers ahead of the storm that power systems could be under stress during the cold spell.

However, there were no major issues.

“We’ve seen extremely high load demand, but our system has performed really well,” said Cimarron CEO and General Manager Aaron Roark.

Roark said Cimarron’s power provider, Western Farmers Electric Cooperative, did have some equipment fail at the Lacey substation Thursday, which caused an outage for all members served from that substation.

However, Cimarron was able to back-feed some members during the outage and WFEC was able to restore the substation in about 90 minutes, Roark said.

Cimarron and Kingfisher also held up well four years ago when Winter Storm Uri hit.

That brought with it 11 consecutive days of sub-freezing temperatures to Kingfisher.

Texas and other parts of Oklahoma weren’t so fortunate as millions of people were without power for an extended period of time during the storm.

We won’t approach that duration with Kingston.

Even if temperatures didn’t get above freezing on Friday, the projected high for Saturday was 53 degrees followed by 64 Sunday and then into the low 70s early this week.

Let the thawing begin.