West Texas Sandstorms and Wildfires AGAIN!

[David Drummond]

Severe level winds have already been in progress across Western Texas today with peak winds in excess of 60 mph hour across the area:

http://wedgefest.wind.ttu.edu/obs/WTM_Summ_today.html

There were a couple of fires earlier, but it appears they got on them early and got them out. It's a very unpleasant BROWN day across west Texas. I won't be going outside today!! :unsure:

 

[JP Santiago]

Severe level winds have already been in progress across Western Texas today with peak winds in excess of 60 mph hour across the area:
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Bands of dust have already been crossing the DFW area, it's quite impressive on the visible satellite shots.

 

[David Drummond]

Don't believe that came from our part of the world. All fo the dust being picked up around here is following the flow around into SW and Central Oklahoma. Shows up really well on regional composit radars, and even the radar/watch composite graphic on the SPC site.

 

[Bill Hamilton]

The dust is extremely bad here in southern OK. The winds are still holding up pretty well also.
The town of Cement, OK has been evacuated because of a wildfire that is threatening the whole town. Other wildfire raging in many parts of OK.
Seems like we have seen this before.

 

[David Drummond]

I just heard from the station there is a big wildfire NW of LBB in that big dusplume showing up on radar/satellite.

LBB and MAF radars also show another fire in Gaines County, as well as one that was in SE NM and down south of Midland as well. Another in western OK I believe too.

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

classic April severe weather/dryline of death setup today. Seems like every April since I been here at OU, theres been at least one of these type days here where severe weather fires in Eastern Oklahoma and a mammoth dryline punching through creating dust storm conditions in central OK. So as wild as it is, its good to know that weather is all occuring right on schedule.

 

[James Clark]

Yup, gotta love the West Texas Fertile Soil Uplift and eXchange (have fun with that acronym). All joking aside, I wish I had gotten to look at the mesonet info of the area so I could see what I could discover about it on my own. Are pretty much all of our dust bowl days here caused by an incredibly strong dryline contrast to the east of here? Always wanted to know that.

 

[Jay McCoy]

It was a nightmare up here in Amarillo on Thursday. We had numerous fires also including on the west,east, and especially the north side of Amarillo in a residential area. We had to evacuate about 600 people then evacuated a nearby elementary school and high school. During this fire I and another AES unit mounted our anemometers at the request of the EOC. We both measured sustained winds of 60mphfor a good 20 minutes. his top gust was 79mph and mine was 81mph. It took most of the evening to get this fire under control and we lost 7 structures. There were also numerous fires north of Amarillo along the candian river and SE of Pampa. all told there were 12 fires in the panhandle. At 1 time we had 7 in Potter county alone including the 3 in amarillo. I still think I smell like smoke. I know my tryuck does. Th inside is covered in dust and ash. I was totally black by the time I got home late thursday for a quick shower and dinner before heading back out all night thrusday/fri morning. We finally got control of the last fire yesterday afternoon. If I never work another grass fire I will rejoice.

Next week looks to be alot of the same with no chance of rain until at least friday with temps in the 80's and winds of 20-30 most the week.


***David it looks like you and I will spend more time with fires than storms (if there is anything left to burn)

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

Here is some shots my cousin took late afternoon on 4/6 as he was driving home from the airport on Meridion Rd.

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