Of living on the Dry Line!
For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s the dividing line, also known as the Marfa Line, of hot/dry air from the west and hot/moist Gulf air meeting over the central US.
It runs from Marfa, Texas north through where we are, all the way up into Canada, especially in the spring. I haven’t seen it yet this year, but I did catch one shot of weather last year that was one continuous front from Marfa all the way up through North Dakota! And that one spawned quite a few tornadoes!!!
So we get to ‘watch’ the weather form, a lot of the time either slightly west of us, or right on top of us. Last week, we got 2 inches of rain in less than an hour. But, the last couple of days have been ‘interesting’ to put it mildly. Severe thunderstorms were predicted to pass over us right at sunset to midnight with heavy rain/hail and gusty winds.
Welp, we certainly GOT the winds! SW at 25, gusting to 40, switching to SE at 15, gusting to 25. BUT, not a drop of rain! SSW of us got 3 inches of rain, west of us got over an inch, north of us by a couple of miles got 1-2 inches of rain.
I swear it parted and went around us, while the winds just continued to blow! And the lightning was impressive, to put it mildly. It was intracloud, and stretched at least 20 miles across the cardinal points of the compass for probably 20 minutes, alternating between east/west and north/south. Needless to say, computers and TVs were OFF!
And we’re supposed to get more ‘storms’ Thursday and Friday…
We have something happening where we live that I can’t pin down to any land feature. Storms tend to split and go around us. How often? Maybe 80% of the time. We watch it on radar often… here it comes…. and it split up again.
I’m at the point of wondering if there is a native Indian graveyard in our backyard.
Arthur, is a large body of water nearby? Maybe I should ask how near is a large body of water?
Could be an isolated heat island, like I live in/near.
Spring in north Texas can be …. interesting. I recall the tornado in Dallas in April, 1957, part of a multi state outbreak that killed a bunch of folks. Watched it from my garage roof with my dad.
There is a good reason why most rural north Texas and Oklahoma homes had a storm cellar.
I remember that storm. My family lived in Richardson just off Belt Line Road. We went out and watched it pass west of us. My dad was at work in Dallas at Collins Radio watching it from the roof of the plant.
I remember that one also. We drove down the next day to look at the damage. I remember being impressed with the railroad boxcars laying on their sides 30 yards away from the rails.
Gliders pilots speak in hushed reverent tones regarding Marfa.
The dryline, which spawns the dreaded derecho, is represented on NOAA maps by symbols which look like a chain of orange colored Ds.
I just checked. There is a dryline jut east of El Paso right now.
(The image will probably update itself.)
https://www.aviationweather.gov/progchart/sfc
Drat. I said map where I meant chart. O woe is me. A thousand pardons.
A punishment of a lashing with wet noodles for you!
*Whaps R with a rolled-up sectional chart* Bad pilot, bad bad!
The meterologist in our area said that the dry line would likely be more to the east this year due to the drought in western Oklahoma and Texas.
That dry line fueled the Lubbock tornado, May 11, 1970. It formed over us and hit Texas Tech just over a mile away and points NE. Dad was from SW Oklahoma, and was out watching the weather. He took us under the house to ride it out. We built a cellar the year after.
He got concrete block from a destroyed gas station, and I chipped off the mortar all winter. We spent more nights than I can remember listening to thunder and wind in that fraidy hole.
My parents and I were in Odessa visiting my grandparents that day. We had to come through Lubbock the next day going home to Amarillo. The destruction was astounding to see.
When the dry line starts in the western or central Texas Panhandle and moves east, the storms often explode upward when they hit the moist upslope SE winds hitting the edge of the caprock in the eastern panhandle & south plains. By the time they reached the Clarendon, Childress, and Wichita Falls area they were producing tornadoes and very large hail.
I worked for a couple of TV stations in Amarillo in the 70s and 80s. When we saw that weather pattern we knew it was going to be a very busy afternoon and evening with all of the weather warnings to broadcast. Especially if the moisture had made it further west than usual.
Triple-point – cold front + low + dry line = Panhandle brace for adventure! It’s supposed to come through later tonight. At the moment it’s over by Dalhart – Clayton NM.
Yep, tonight will be another ‘interesting’ evening… sigh
I live in Gainesville, FL. Which is a dry oak hammock and hills surrounded by swamps and lowlands.
Storms will build up, huge, National Weather Service will issue warnings and watches, and the storms will hit the area and split around Gainesville. It takes a really tough storm to actually break the invisible barrier around this place.
It’s weird, really weird. Works on thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes.
Art- Probably a water ‘feature’ either river or lake close to you.
r- Oh yeah… And the dry line DOES move east and west depending on time of day, time of year…
All- Yep, storm cellars and standing outside to watch until it’s close enough to make you move to shelter!
Beans- The lakes, etc. south of Gainesville tend to cause weather to ‘split’.
The 2011 tornado outbreak was the largest, costliest, and one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks ever recorded. And it all took place *east* of the Mississippi in the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, and Virginia.
But wait. There’s more!
The *second* largest tornado outbreak on record happened in April of 1974. It was also the most violent tornado outbreak ever recorded, with 30 F4 or F5 tornadoes confirmed. There were 148 tornadoes confirmed in the U.S. in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and New York. And also a few in the province of Ontario Canada. Are you seeing a pattern yet?
Where is Tornado Alley again? I would say it’s the entire east-central area of the continent – from the Appalachians to the Rockies. At least out on the high plains you might see them coming. Not here in the hills and hollers. Sometimes you won’t see them until they drop out of the sky on your head – usually starting with a bodacious hailstorm.
While working in Central Texas, a few decades ago, I experienced a dry line series of thunderstorms. The huge thunderstorms were almost unbelievable, and the one that hit late at night was astonishing. I’d never seen lightning so constant you could read by it.
When the wind, and hail, hit, the power went out in the motel. It was off for about fifteen minutes, and the night clerk warned about an impending tornado. It didn’t hit us, and when the power came back on, I turned the television to the Weather Channel. It soon warned of the severe storm that was now almost over. I’ve never trusted the warnings of the Weather Channel since.
Dish Network had one of the contract/price disputes with the Weather Channel a few years ago. They brought in Weather Nation as a substitute, and when TWC came back, kept WN. It’s far better than the Weather Channel gubbage, and they’re serious about showing all the information. Commercials are aired in a window on the screen, and the maps and warnings still play on.
If you can get it, it’s worth checking out.
We just had Tornado Warnings issued for the Denver/Aurora area. Nothing headed this way but lots of rain and wind, so we should be OK. Had some THREE INCH ( ! ) hail South of here last night, and yep, lots of damage.
Hey Old NFO;
Don’t hold your breath…You will get some climate apologist saying that it is “Climate Change” and push for a carbon tax….
it made for sever weather almost every day last week…there were wind gusts near 80mph sat night in the dfw area…the wind blew so hard the rain sounded like hail on the windows…this week we have had rain, nothing severe so far…
All- Thanks and yes, the rest of the week it supposed to be ‘interesting’… sigh
Thanks to your reports of Wichita Falls weather my wife added a column to her “House Hunting Spreadsheet.”
It read TIMES MENTIONED ON THE WEATHER CHANNEL.
I’m about 15 miles west of Austin, on the edge of the weirdness… For the last few years I’ve been paying attention to the rain pattern at my home and regularly see storms aiming directly at my location, then splitting around my neighborhood. The only water nearby is a retention pond about three miles west of me.
I remember my uncle telling me about a hailstorm in Arlington dropping grapefruit side hail through his roof maybe 20 years ago.