Wow, what a day! I believe I'm still cleaning the dirt and dust out of my eyes. This was a very strong upper-level trough that brought the extreme wind speeds across West Texas. West winds picked up dirt and dust and reduced visibilities at times to near zero. The good news is that temperature remained cool and we didn't see any large wildfires.
Here are the latest wind gust reports from the West Texas Mesonet:
Clarendon: 77 mph
Tulia: 70 mph
Turkey: 67 mph
Silverton: 68 mph
Childress: 67 mph
Paducah: 64 mph
Odell: 61 mph
Lubbock Airport: 60 mph
Floydada: 60 mph
Dimmitt: 60 mph
Friona: 60 mph
Muleshoe: 60 mph
Reese Center: 60 mph
Ralls: 58 mph
Plainview: 57 mph
Sundown: 57 mph
As you can tell, the strongest winds occurred a few counties north of Lubbock. Remnant outflow boundaries were seen after earlier convection near Amarillo. These gust fronts were responsible for the extremely high winds across the northern South Plains. Minor roof damage occurred across these areas. We also got numerous reports of down trees and power lines across our area.
Dust and dirt made travel quite hazardous as well. Visibilities were reduced to about a quarter of a mile. It was even worse north of Lubbock. Reports of zero visibility was common across the roadways, especially around rural areas. You could see the dust storm on visible satellite. Here is a great link of it:
1/22/12 Dust StormThank you for sending in your pictures, please continue to do so. Email us at
weather@fox34.com. Here are a few:
Karin Dorsey: Lockney, TX
Sergio Canales: Lubbock, TX
Serena Coulson: Abernathy, TX
An upper-level low will dive south out of the Rocky Mountains on Tuesday and will track east and through Texas on Wednesday. This will help increase rain chances Tuesday evening and Wednesday. Models are coming into better agreement with this feature. Looks like the heaviest precipitation will stay east of Lubbock and into the Rolling Plains. We are having some trouble with temperatures midweek. If we get that colder airmass, then there is a slight chance of a rain/snow mix. We'll know more about this system in the coming days. Obviously the focus has been on todays dust storm.
Have a great evening and enjoy the 49ers vs Giants game! I will have more details on our rain chances tonight after American Idol.
-Chase
