Katie Talman screamed as she threw a snowball at her son Ryan, who was shielding himself with his arm.

“Ah! I got you,” she screamed.

The two-year-old – bundled up in a winter coat, boots and gloves – trudged through the snowy, green terrain at the carousel in Frankford Park in far north Dallas. His brother Luke launched a counterattack.

“Ah! You got me!” Katie shouted back as the grabbed puck of powdery precipitate hurtled toward her.

Businesses and schools in North Texas closed Thursday as communities braced for the threat of 5 inches of snow, severe wintry conditions and forecasts that brought deja vu and panic about a repeat of the 2021 storm that killed nearly 250 Texans died. Despite the bitter weather scare, people across Dallas-Fort Worth ventured outside for some respite, joy and frosty fun.

The few flakes didn’t stop children in Fort Worth’s Fairmount neighborhood from building a snowman: around 10:30 a.m., they managed to roll a thick base. Meanwhile, in suburban Collin County, young boys were seen practicing their snowball throwing.

“Three, two, one, go,” Jamie and Tommy Tomlin counted down before pushing their 2-year-old son Aiden down a slope in Plano’s Liberty Park. The Tomlins used a baking sheet as an impromptu sled while family dog ​​Milo ran down the slope toward Aiden.

“It’s refreshing and invigorating,” said Steve Break, 50, during his morning jog at White Rock Lake. “And it happens so rarely. So I wanted to capture it.”

Break, who is from the Northeast, said the mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow made for the ideal run.

“We should go out and get some cold air in our lungs because our summers are so brutal,” he said. “I want to enjoy this moment because it doesn’t last long.”

Staff photographer Juan Figueroa and staff writers Matt Kyle, Sarah Bahari and Scott Bell contributed to this report.