10/09/05 NOW: Western Texas

[Andrew Khan]

Right now through the Upton County/Midland County, there is a pretty awsome bow echo complex moving NEE at a moderate speed. I believe along with this storm, there will be some damaging winds, and already there is a severe thunderstorm warning/tornado warning, along with a continuing severe thunderstorm watch, until later hours. If you look at the storm you can see marginal rotation, but doesn't look extremely severe, however this storm is expected to weaken, due to the conflicting airmass, it is proceeding into. I still think tornado production in this is fairly slim, due to certain conditions. I'd say there is an embedded supercell somewhere in this complex, too. But a favorible thing, is the helicity, here which may render the storms lifetime to a much greater length, perhaps a couple more hours. Oh, and pretty weak veering/backing winds.

 

[Andrew Khan]

Rain has quickly caused flash flooding in TX, with quickly enveloping the counites with 16.5+ in of rain, and more to come, along the lines of 18.9 in now.

EDIT: Latest velocity scans showing some 60+ kts in northern upton county.

 

[Andrew Khan]

Path/Direction of this thing has changed to NEE, now mostly east however. There is majoy flooding still going on, and there have been numerous couplets tripped in the past 15-20 minutes. I was thinking they were going to re-issue there tornado watch, but they didn't, hmm...I see one area of very strong concentrated rotation along the NE side of the storm...this could be of some concern. And so far, no LSR's what so ever.

 

[David Drummond]

Just a side note to mention since I am from the area, might want to retitle your thread, as Upton County/Midland area is over 300 miles from the Texas Panhandle. It's refered to the Permian Basin/Transpecos area. And I can attest that there is indeed an overabundance or rain across the area out here.

 

[Andrew Khan]

Has there been any flooding, in your area yet? Looks like someone re-titled my thread for me, lol.

 

[Andrew Khan]

Yeah, it's really weakening, check out the lowering dBZ values....but you right, it can still put out a lot of rain..major flooding could be a threat here. Earlier a TVS got tripped along the gust front, and I checked it, which read 70+ kts of wind, however with the rain problem I'd say it's up to 23.6 in in some places.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Little bow in Crockett County is strengthening nicely attm.

 

[David Drummond]

Has there been any flooding, in your area yet? Looks like someone re-titled my thread for me, lol.

I travelled around a bit today. There is some localized street flooding in the Lubbock area and south of Lubbock. Some of the cotton fields were starting to fill up. A bit of hail and thunder produced earlier. I listened in on the SKYWARN frequencies for the Permian Basin earlier....for the most part, this is sounding like a huge heavy rain event for western TX. I was pretty skeptical when I saw the SPC outlooks last night, especially on that 2% torn, as it has just been so cool here lately, I just couldn't see the instability getting there, combined with the widespread precip.

While we always need the rain in this part of the state, the bad side of this is that this is the beginning of harvest season, especially for cotton and they need things dry to get that out of the field. Most crops have already be defoliated and prolonged rain amounts can cause damage to the exposed cotton boles. Keep in mind these same areas getting the drenching tonight got upwards to 5 inches the other day when the big cold front came through.

Fortunately, down further south toward the border where the real severe weather is occuring is extremely sparsely populated.

Couple of bows showing up near Sonora and along the Rio Grande. Not even any decent sized trees down that way to blow over.