Raising a crop in Texas is a lot like playing poker. No matter how hard a farmer works or how much he knows about farming, he can still lose his shirt if his luck goes bad. Pick a card. Plunging temperatures destroy crops worth millions. Plants wither and die for lack of rain.
Floods rip through fields.
Hailstorms smash crops to smithereens. Odds are the farmer will not get a bad card every time, but his chances of drawing a few are very good in Texas. Texas weather covers a wide range of extremes. Temperatures may plunge to minus 18 degrees in the High Plains and soar above the 110 degree mark in the Trans Pecos region. The average annual rainfall varies from below 8 inches in El Paso to almost 60 inches in Orange.