A couple of the more recent ones
• 1983 — The Christmas Freeze, which set air temperature records across Texas, plunged coastal surface water temperatures from 60-64 degrees ahead of the front to 35 degrees in less than 8 hours.
Temperature remained below freezing in Port Arthur for 77 consecutive hours. Ice rimmed every Texas bay. On Trinity Bay, a 4-inch-thick sheet of ice extended almost 500 yards from shore. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department conducted intense, systematic and detailed monitoring of the freeze’s impacts. The estimated death toll: 14 million fish.
• 1989 — Two freezes — Feb. 3-6 and Dec. 22-24 — killed an estimated 17 million finfish.
The February freeze hit the upper and lower Laguna Madre hardest, but caused localized fish kills along the length of the Texas coast. TPWD estimated 11.3 million finfish killed.
The December freeze set air temperature records across the states. Brownsville saw 16 degrees, and temperatures fell to single digits along the upper coast. Houston set a record with 7 degrees.
Texas bays lost an estimated 6 million fish to the December 1989 freeze. The toll would have been much higher, but the February freeze had already stripped the bays of a large portion of their fish populations.
from Shannon Tompkins