Today will be another warm one, following Lubbock’s record high of 78° yesterday. Temperatures will again likely top out in the upper 70’s by mid-afternoon. Skies will continue to be mostly clear throughout the day, with westerly winds 10-15 mph;possibly gusting to 20 mph by late afternoon. It will cool off overnight, but temperatures will still be nearly 10° above average; with our low temperature only falling to near 40°. Skies will stay mostly clear through the night, with light winds expected.
Why is it so warm?
There are several reasons why it has gotten so warm, and will likely stay warm for the next several days. An important reason is due to the fact that winds have gradually shifted southwesterly, to at times westerly across the South Plains during the past couple of days ahead of a very large storm system which is currently affecting the northern coasts of Washington, Oregon ,and northern California. In fact up to 10 inches of rain is expected across northern portions of California, with several feet of snow expected to fall in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada and other mountains ranges in north-central California. Unfortunately for us, this system’s only affect on our weather has been to turn our winds southwesterly; which are traditionally a very warm and dry winds for the south plains due to the fact that they will be coming off of the Chihuahua Desert in Mexico. This, along with few clouds and very dry grounds across the area will lead to very warm afternoons and only mild nights.
Below is snap-shot of the expected surface wind speed and direction for Friday afternoon; modeled by one of the many forecast models used to help forecasters predict the weather. There are three main features of interest on this map. The first is the tightly packed ‘isotachs’, or solid black lines on the map located just off of the west coast. This is where the monstrous storm system affecting the west coast is generally located. The second item to notice are the individual the black lines, or arrows, over west Texas. These represent wind speed in knots, as well as direction that the wind is blowing from. The lines are pointing towards the west and southwest, thus indicating a southwest or westerly wind. The last thing to notice are the large red arrows drawn over the image; these represent the generally flow around the storm system off of the west coast. Even though Lubbock is 1,000 miles away from any precipitation associated with this storm, it is still able to affect out weather with the dry-southwesterly flow which has developed well out ahead of it.
Wreck ‘Em,
Image Credit: Twisterdata.com
Cutter Martin (KTXT Weather)
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