A wall of dust as tall as 1,000 feet and 200 miles wide that roared across parts of West Texas and New Mexico is yet another sign of how rain-starved the region is.
National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Aldrich in Lubbock said Wednesday that the dust that lifted into the air on Tuesday evening came ahead of a fast-moving cold front that reached the city, already more than 1.5 inches behind on precipitation this year as drought lingers.
Most of the .17 inches of moisture that Lubbock’s gotten this year has been from snow and freezing precipitation.
Wind gusts Tuesday evening reached 50 mph and it took about 30 minutes for the leading wall of dust to move from the north end of Lubbock County to its southern border. Dust hung in the air afterward for hours and the strong winds persisted.
Visibility was reduced to about a mile in Lubbock. Northwest of Lubbock in Muleshoe and Friona the visibility was zero, Aldrich said.
Aldrich says the dust storm began in Amarillo and the wall of fine soil particles extended west into New Mexico and east to near Post, about 40 miles southwest of Lubbock. The front began in Kansas, and once it reached the parched Panhandle around Amarillo, the dust began to get kicked up.
It worsened as it moved south toward Lubbock.
“It’s drier up there, but it’s even drier down here,” Aldrich said.
About 67 percent of Texas is in some stage of drought, and projections from weather service officials in Fort Worth show the state got about half the average amount of rainfall for January and February. But the driest areas are in West Texas.
Dust storms like the one that hit the region Tuesday typically happen ahead of thunderstorms, Aldrich said.
But cold fronts also can spawn the monster clouds of dust that barrel across the flat terrain.
“If (the cold front) is as strong as the one we had yesterday, with the wind speed we had, it could definitely happen again,” Aldrich said.
Dust Bowl days
Shades of the 1930s – extended period of drought – plus, they say plowing methods that exacerbated soil erosion.
Falling levels within the groundwater tables throughout the West. Areas that could once be counted on for farming or ranching can no longer serve that purpose.
Too bad, because the only way we get by is to have a new record crop each and every year to support the increasing population.
Something about “overshoot”. And if the overshoot is not corrected voluntarily then Nature will come up with a far more draconian plan. Something about “bottleneck”.
But only hippies use terms like that. So everybody relax. Just mention this to Gov. Perry. He’ll tell you this is all a hoax.