Extremely Critical Fire Weather in New Mexico & West Texas; Severe Thunderstorms for the Great Plains

Extremely critical fire weather (Level 3 of 3) including high winds and very dry conditions is expected this afternoon and evening for central and southern New Mexico into far west Texas. Isolated to scattered severe thunderstorms are possible mainly this evening into early morning Monday across parts of the Great Plains. Large to very large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes possible. Read More >

Heavy Snow Event

March 6, 2008

On 6 March 2008, a convective precipitation band formed across North Texas and quickly transitioned from rain to snow in a 60 km wide zone extending from west of the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex northeast into extreme North Texas near the Red River. The snow persisted for over three hours with accumulations averaging 7 cm and isolated reports up to 30 cm near the heaviest convective precipitation. Frontogenesis and the resulting ageostrophic circulation appeared to play key roles in not only providing significant forcing for ascent but also in modifying the vertical temperature profile to be supportive of a liquid-to-frozen precipitation transition. The presence of atmospheric instability led to isolated thunderstorm development, with occasional cloud-to-ground and in-cloud lightning observed in the band of heavy snow. This study reviews the complex interactions between moisture, instability, and forcing for ascent that occurred during this convective winter weather event.

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Extremely Critical Fire Weather in New Mexico & West Texas; Severe Thunderstorms for the Great Plains

March 6, 2008 Snow