Texas High Plains walloped by dust storms fed by drought, high winds

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LUBBOCK — The Texas High Plains is an enormous swath of oil-rich soil and farm and ranch land so far as the attention can see — solely the peaks of Caprock Canyon break up the limitless miles of plains within the area.

The picturesque panorama can yield stunning sunsets, but it surely additionally brings filth.

Lots of filth.

This week, the area has been blanketed in a thick layer of dust kicked up by highly effective winds that reached as high as 69 miles per hour, in line with the Lubbock workplace of the National Weather Service.

“These are the kinds of winds that you see with tropical storms or hurricanes,” stated Harrison Sincavage, a forecaster with the climate service. “But rather than have all the rain, everything is dusty and brown, and occasionally on fire.”

While there have been no wildfires this week, the area has been below a purple flag warning. And a high wind advisory. And a visibility warning. And an air-quality warning, too.

Those sorts of situations could be a nightmare for many different locations in Texas. In the High Plains, these dust storms are frequent and may evolve into haboobs — intense, gritty sandstorms that rapidly put a sepia-colored filter over all the pieces and switch the child blue sky a unclean brown hue.

Sincavage stated causes embody the area’s elevation and its flatness. There’s not a lot in the way in which of hills or timber, or human-made buildings, to decelerate the wind.

“The faster winds can get to the surface better than they can along the I-35 corridor between Dallas and Oklahoma City,” Sincavage stated. “Unfortunately, with the wind comes all the lovely dust.”

Dust storms usually final an hour or two, however the longer the wind has to select up pace, the extra filth and dust it could actually scour off the dry floor and the extra possible it’s to develop right into a haboob (which is an Arabic phrase for a violent dust storm). The very best situations happen most frequently round March on this a part of Texas.

By Thursday, the dust had settled and the solar was beaming over Lubbock, which meant there have been lengthy strains on the native automotive washes. Lanita Ladd waited outdoors her silver SUV as her husband, Cliff, detailed the within.

“It was horrible,” Lanita stated of this week’s dust storms. “It really kicks up your allergies, and you can’t get outside and do anything like walk or take the dog out.”

Lanita has lived in Lubbock since she was a youngster, so she tries to maintain her regular routine when this occurs. She took her mom to an train class, however the climate made {that a} problem.

“We try to keep up with our activities, it’s just we get blown away when we’re outside,” Lanita stated. “The winds yesterday were so bad that I got outside and had to try and get my balance. Then when you drive, you look at the sky and it’s just brown.”

Once Cliff was achieved cleansing their car, he shrugged the climate off. Lubbock may need filth and wind, but it surely’s higher than different locations, Cliff stated.

“Yeah, we have to deal with the wind, but we don’t have to deal with extreme flooding or hurricanes,” Cliff stated. “Year-round, we have a lot better days than bad days out here.”

On Wednesday in Amarillo, an almost 80 mph wind brought about issues about one other dangerous day of visibility. The day earlier than, the dust in Amarillo was so thick that visibility fell beneath 1 mile at occasions, inflicting car accidents. The Texas Department of Public Safety referred to the climate as a “brown out.”

“With all the droughts we’ve had over the last three years, it dries everything out,” defined Melissa Beat, a meteorologist with the NWS Amarillo workplace. “Then if farmers haven’t been able to plant the field and things aren’t coming up to hold down that dirt pack, it allows for all the dust to get moving around.”

Beat stated the La Niña climate sample, which causes hotter winter temperatures within the South, has been lingering for 3 years, which has contributed to the state’s ongoing drought and made the next dust storms within the area worse.

While locals could also be used to it, the situations can nonetheless trigger issues for individuals who must work or drive within the dust. Beat stated it’s a unique sort of storm to drive by, so individuals want to reply in another way.

“A lot of people think, I should leave my lights on and pull off to the side of the road,” Beat stated. “But if you’re parked on the side of the road, the visibility is almost nothing, and a car comes up and sees lights, they’re going to think that you’re on the road and not off to the side.”

Even with the low visibility creating chaos for the area, Beat stated it’s nothing out of the atypical.

“It’s just what happens on these windy days that we get here in West Texas,” she stated.