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!