The event involved a thin band of snowfall with unusually cold temperatures for the middle Texas coast, and caused dozens of varied weather records to be shattered.

A surface cyclone formed in the western Gulf of Mexico on December 24 due to a shortwave aloft, and moved eastward through the western Gulf of Mexico, bringing banded snowfall to the middle Texas coast.

Any snowfall in these areas is extremely unusual, perhaps occurring once every twenty years, and these events are usually airborne flurries which melt on contact with the ground.

In Brownsville, Texas, snow fell to a depth of 1.5 inches (3.8 cm), the first measurable snowfall at the city in over 100 years, since the Great Blizzard of 1899.

Some snow totals:[1] As the cyclone tracked through Florida offshore the Southeast, up to an inch of freezing rain and sleet fell at Augusta and Aiken.

[6] Light to moderate snow fell on the Eastern Shore, with the highest amount of 4.5 inches (11 cm) measured at Shelltown.

[7] On December 25, 2004, there was light to moderate snowfall across portions of the state, with the highest amount of 2 inches (5.1 cm) falling at Mount Holly.

[7] Snow fell across portions of the state during this storm, with 6 inches (15 cm) falling at a dairy farm in Franklin.