Extreme risk for wildfires and dust storms in the Southern Plains this Friday

AccuWeather

With powerful wind gusts and drought conditions combined, March 14 could be incredibly dangerous for multiple reasons in much of Texas and surrounding areas.

Transcript

00:00This is gonna be the highest impactful or at least the highest threat of fire danger

00:04We have seen so far this season and it's pretty early in the season

00:08Damien is unfortunately looks like a the risk for a historic

00:12wildfire risk and blowing dust event here across the southern plains with

00:18gusty winds of 50 to 80 miles per hour in some spots that will blow that dust around and of course create an extreme fire

00:26risk and what sets us up for both the

00:28Blowing dust problem and also the wildfire risk is take a look at the latest drought monitor areas in the shades of brown here

00:36dry all the way from dry to

00:38extreme drought in some parts of West Texas from Lubbock to Midland Odessa down toward San Antonio and Austin where the drought

00:46Has been particularly bad. So we've got a lot of dry

00:49Areas here a lot of dry soil that can easily be picked up by these gusty winds

00:54That's right as you look at the overall fire risk here for Friday and a Friday night

00:58We have a scale that goes from 1 to 4 and this one has multiple areas that are under that level 4 threat

01:05This is topping out at the extreme and we do not do that lightly. That's why we're only doing that because we believe it's

01:12historic risk in terms of the fire

01:14danger here across especially the

01:17Texas Panhandle Amarillo Midland out toward Oklahoma City and parts of

01:22Southern Kansas as well and the risk here is that any type of spark or flame can quickly evolve into a dangerous wildfire

01:30That may spread very rapidly because of these gusty winds and dry brush

01:35So it's a combination of all these

01:38Situations that can lead to rapidly growing fires and the risk for those fires to move toward communities

01:44So people in these areas need to be on the lookout if they receive fire warnings or evacuation

01:49Notices from local officials be ready to act quickly because the fires

01:54can these kind of fires in these situations can move quickly and could be a real danger and

02:00John one of the unfortunate things here about the setup for the storms for tomorrow is going to be just how strong the winds are

02:05These ones are going to be so strong that the winds by themselves can cause arcing power lines

02:10Which are one of the primary indicators in initiators of fires. That's right

02:16That's one of the causes for wildfires and just look at the scope of the area from the US Canada border all the way down

02:22to the Rio Grande

02:23We're dealing with a risk of for wind gusts to 40 to 50 miles per hour

02:27The highest winds will be located here across parts of the southern plains up toward

02:33Nebraska with gusts of 50 to 60 miles per hour

02:35But 60 to 70 mile per hour gusts from the south and west here across those parts of the southern plains

02:42And that's really going to result in that risk for power outage

02:46Difficult travel and of course as we've been talking about the blowing dust concerns

02:51That's right. As you look at the overall area that we're tracking

02:54I mean, it's almost bullseye to where we're gonna see the strongest winds and that drought monitor almost

02:59Overlap and this is going to be the result

03:01It is and what we're concerned about here is that across this area from eastern, New Mexico to West, Texas up in Oklahoma

03:08Including perhaps the area of the Dallas Metroplex and even over toward Oklahoma City in time that there may be dust storms

03:16That rapidly reduce visibility to near zero in some places and this is the kind of situation Damien that we've seen before

03:24unfortunately result in

03:26multi-vehicle chain

03:28Reaction accidents so danger here along interstate 40 I-44 I-20 I-10

03:34That can be a risk in those areas and some of that dust can get

03:38Transported by the winds behind this storm system all the way up across parts of Missouri even up towards Chicago

03:45We could have some suspended dust here in the air Friday night into Saturday

03:49That can create a haze in the sky and in some areas especially closer to the southern plains

03:54The dust can be enough to reduce air quality. So a major issue here

03:59It's going to be a very unusual day and a dangerous one on multiple accounts

04:03Across the southern plains a great time to download the AccuWeather app turn on push notifications

04:08So warnings can be delivered to your phone and we've got a great tracking tool for very localized air quality current conditions and forecasts

04:16They'll be very beneficial as well

04:19Alright AccuWeather chief meteorologist John Porter. Thank you so much for joining us and we appreciate your insight. Thanks

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