Another dangerous day of impactful thunderstorm activity is expected across western parts of Texas today, including the Panhandle, West Texas, and parts of the Permian Basin.
The main concern is dry thunderstorms. That means storms may produce lightning and very strong, erratic outflow winds, but with low-level air so dry that much of the rain evaporates before reaching the ground. That setup can spark grass fires and make fire behavior extremely difficult, with wind gusts over 50 to 70 mph possible near storms.
This is similar to what happened Thursday, when lightning and thunderstorm winds helped produce multiple large fires across the Panhandle, West Texas, and nearby areas. Today brings another risk for lightning-started fires, locally extreme fire behavior, rapid fire spread, and dangerous conditions for firefighting operations.
Storms may move farther east this evening into slightly higher moisture across Northwest Texas, the Big Country, and the western Concho Valley. That could allow storms to look more robust on radar and produce damaging winds with more actual rain reaching the surface.
The weekend looks hot and windy, but Saturday may stay mostly capped with the better upper-level support north of Texas. Sunday may bring some additional storm chances, and by Monday into next week, thunderstorm chances may increase again across parts of Northwest Texas, the Big Country, and western North Texas.
In this Texas Weather Roundup:
• Dangerous dry thunderstorm risk today
• Lightning-started grass fire concerns
• Erratic thunderstorm winds over 50–70 mph
• Panhandle, West Texas and Permian Basin impacts
• Storms moving into Northwest Texas and the Big Country tonight
• Hot and mostly capped Saturday
• Storm chances possibly returning Sunday and Monday
• Next week rain and thunderstorm chances
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