Late-week fire risk for south-central US

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Long-Range Expert Joe Lundberg gives new updates to the upcoming fire threats in Texas.

Transcript

00:00Joining me right now is AccuWeather long-range meteorologist, you know who he is, the crystal

00:05ball meteorologist Joe Lumberg, you know Joe, it was about a week ago that you were pointing

00:10to me to this Friday that you were looking at an extreme wind event and there's nothing

00:16that we've seen that tells us anything different as we look at the data today.

00:21No, I mean it was a system that was going to come out of California, it was going to

00:25be an energetic system with a threat for severe weather on one side, snow and ice

00:29on the northwest side, and then underneath it there's going to be a lot of wind.

00:33Let's take a look at the upper level flow for the next several days.

00:37This one little feature will roll through the southern Rockies and out into the southern

00:40plains tonight and tomorrow and as it does it will generate some wind of its own, but

00:44that's the one that we're really keeping our eyes on.

00:47That comes through California and as it continues to slide eastward as we go through Wednesday

00:51night Thursday and into Friday, there's going to be a lot of wind energy underneath it and

00:55that's the system that we're looking at to cause all of the severe weather, the snow

00:59and the wind and the extreme fire threat later this week.

01:02But it's so dry Joe that even that first system is going to cause a problem here Wednesday

01:07into Thursday.

01:08It will, in fact I think Wednesday is probably the higher of the two days in terms of the

01:12risk factor.

01:13Winds are going to gust upwards of 40 to 50 mph in places and of course with the dry brush,

01:17the very low humidity, there's going to be a lot of blowing dust.

01:20But definitely an elevated fire risk for Wednesday into Thursday.

01:23But that's just the first one as you mentioned Bernie.

01:26Here's that second one.

01:27There's that powerful up level system and again it comes out of the southern Rockies

01:30and works its way up into this general fashion as it does.

01:33A lot of wind energy underneath this and at this time of year it's very easy to transfer

01:37that down to the ground, especially when you've got a surface area of low pressure in tandem

01:42with it and then you combine it with sunshine and all those ingredients are in play and

01:46as a result of that, look at the winds that we're forecasting.

01:49Wednesday, 40 to 60, some places 70 across portions of eastern New Mexico and the Texas

01:54Panhandle perhaps up to 100 mph and again, a lot of blowing dust that's going to cause

02:00poor visibility and localized damage as a result of that and power outages and of course

02:04the high fire threat.

02:06And the other problem is Joe, this is an area that is pretty parched when you look at the

02:11drought monitor.

02:12It is.

02:13Much of Texas, particularly south and west Texas up into New Mexico and even Arizona,

02:17extremely dry.

02:18We're talking about an extreme to severe drought in these places.

02:22So you've got antecedent dry conditions, you lower the humidity even more, you crank up

02:27the wind and this is just a recipe for problems.

02:30Look at these wind gusts.

02:31We're projecting 40 to 70 mph, again, dry brush, low humidity, dust storms are probably

02:36very likely in this area.

02:39Rapidly growing fires.

02:40If any fire breaks out, it will spread very, very rapidly.

02:42And again, the area of concern is eastern New Mexico into west Texas.

02:46Back here with a long range expert, meteorologist Joe Lumberg.

02:49Joe, thanks for joining us here.

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