Forecasters say West Texas is in for another round of intense wind and high fire danger on Friday, conditions that could rival last week’s dust storm that led to widespread travel disruptions.
“There’s a good potential for it to be very similar to that event,” said Devin Chehak, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Midland.
Early last week, massive walls of dust in southeastern New Mexico and Far West Texas led to hazardous travel conditions and later clouded the skies of major cities like Dallas and Austin.
The weather service said in a forecast note Wednesday that this Friday’s “windbag” will bring “strong to very strong winds, blowing dust, and critical to extreme fire weather conditions” to the region.
Chehak said the wind this time around won’t be quite as strong in parts of the region - namely south of I-10 - as those seen last week, but there will still be the potential for “significant blowing dust” in southeastern New Mexico, across the Permian Basin and in particular around the intersections of I-10 and I-20.
Wind advisories and high fire danger warnings were already in effect across the region on Wednesday, but fire conditions are expected to worsen by Friday.
West Texas will see “critical” fire danger on Friday in part because of “very dry fuels,” the weather service said. The Texas A&M Forest Service expects most of the state to see “extreme” fire danger on Friday.
Most of Far West Texas remains under “exceptional drought conditions,” the highest level of drought measured by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
According to Chehak, the ongoing intense drought in West Texas is one of several factors contributing to the blowing dust conditions the region has seen in recent weeks.
“We didn’t have a good growing season last year, so we don’t have a lot of vegetation on the ground already,” he said. “So that allows for topsoil and just dust in general to be easily picked up by the winds.”
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