In The Vortex

Category: Extreme Weather

All things Extreme Weather!

  • Historic Wind Event in Texas and New Mexico Tomorrow?

    12.07.09.wind.forecast

    After an VERY chilly night across west Texas and eastern New Mexico, complete with freezing fog that may cause some frozen spots on the roadway in the morning and most certainly a glazed over windshield to start your day off nicely, temperatures should warm up considerably from today’s highs.

    But along with that comes the return of the wind machine.  This even is being compared by some forecasters to a climatologically similar event that happened in 1996. Windspread damage and significant travel impacts occurred during that event with gusts peaking at 128mph across the Guadalupe Pass and significant damage across southeast New Mexico!

    This event is expected to be similar, with widespread wind gusts of 60-65mph with higher gusts in the Davis mountains of 90mph and 120mph through Guadalupe Pass.  Some isolated gusts across the non-mountainous regions over 70mph can’t be ruled out.

    This type of wind across the area can create extreme blowing dust, bringing visibilities down to zero in some places, and most definitely will cause driving problems on North/South routes, especially with larger passenger vehicles and especially high profile vehicles like trucks and RVs.  I expect many will be turned over on the road tomorrow.  It’s quite possible state police may shut down the pass for a period during peak winds.

    Anything and everything not tied down will become airborn debris tomorrow, so brave the cold tonight and tie it down or bring it in.  This includes any of those high dollar inflatable Christmas decorations you might have in your yard.  Santa won’t need a sleigh to go flying tomorrow!

    All joking aside, this is a dangerous wind event! These are windspread tropical storm force winds folks, with gusts as high as Hurricane Category 3 ratings!  The sandstorms will make driving dangerous for anyone, and I’ve seen big wind events cause multiple car pileups in west Texas, some with fatalities.  Never mind the potential to get hit in the head with flying debris, so if you can, stay indoors and at home tomorrow!

    I of course, being the extreme weather chaser I am, will be out in the thick of it, bringing back the story and images to you!  Currently plans are to try to get to the Guadalupe Pass by noon to be in place to experience the peak wind speeds.  After a visit there, we’ll see what is going on across southeast New Mexico and then on into West Texas by the end of the day. I’ll be live streaming of course as data access allows, right here on the LIVE ChaseCam!

  • Snow Bust and another chance for Snow?

    12.02.09.snowmap

    The big forecast snowstorm for most of west Texas was largely an epic bust for the South Plains.  While some areas saw at most 2″ accumulated, precipitation mode had a hard time changing over, and staying, as snow, courtesy of a warmer layer around 3000 feet up and surface temps that wanted to hang around just above freezing.  After driving around parts of the South Plains for about 4 hours, we saw little snow.  I can tell you what snow did fall was very wet, sticking very efficiently to road signs and power poles.  If it had been able to switch over to all snow, I have no doubt we would have been in the high end totals expectations.

    Areas to the west and southwest faired better for snowfall totals.  The Carlsbad, NM area saw some decent totals, some 6-8″ last I heard, and even lost power to part of the city due to the wet snows.  Van Horn down in southwest Texas also manages about a foot of snow, being in close proximity to the Davis Mountains.

    North Texas is now currently enjoying our winter storm with widespread reports of 2″+ accumulated.

    Attention now turns to snow Thursday and Friday.  Unlike this past event, cold temps will not be a problem with time, due to a strong cold front that plowed through during the wee hours this morning.  It’s currently sunny, and still windy and very chilly outside, with temps around 40F.  So any precip that does fall, should do so as all snow.

    Right now the National Weather Service thinks the best snowfall potential is south and west of a line from Tulia to Floydada to Jayton, which takes in over 3/4 of the Texas South Plains, parts of the Panhandle and the eastern New Mexico plains.

    As usual, if this plays out, I’ll be out in it!