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Critical Fire Weather Concerns; Storm Tracking Across the Plains

Combination of strong winds, dry conditions and above normal temperatures will result in elevated to critical fire weather concerns for the Southern Plains and portions of Southern California. This is part of a storm system that is tracking across the central Plains with occasional snow showers and heavier snow from the Rockies through the Central/Northern Plains. Read More >

Overview

On the second anniversary of the bomb cyclone (https://www.weather.gov/ama/March13_2019_HighWinds), we were dealt another very potent upper level system which produced widespread hazards from heavy snow across the front range/Rockies to severe weather across the Southern High Plains. For us here in the Panhandles, we issued 13 tornado warnings and 10 severe thunderstorm warnings. This was the first tornado day of the 2021 convective season in our area, with eight confirmed tornadoes. We also saw three separate instances in which two tornadoes were in progress from the same parent thunderstorm at the same time.

A vigorous closed upper low was approaching the Four Corners region from the west. A warm front lifted north and northwest across all but the Oklahoma Panhandle and the northwest Texas Panhandle while a sharpening dryline was located over eastern New Mexico. The dryline preceded a Pacific cold front which was also located in eastern New Mexico and swept eastward later in the evening. A broken line of thunderstorms developed ahead of the dryline in eastern New Mexico and tracked north and east into the western and southwestern Texas Panhandle before continuing to move east across the remainder of the eastern Panhandles during the evening hours, growing upscale as the Pacific cold front swept eastward and overtook the dryline.

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