Tonight: Winds calming. Clear & cold. Low 35.
Tomorrow: Cooler. Mostly sunny & windy. High 56.
Today marks the first day of spring although we don’t officially ring in the spring equinox until 10:49 PM. While the first day of spring was warm, it was very windy. Top wind gusts maxed out at 50 mph in some locations across the South Plains. Due to these strong winds, all of the South Plains and Rolling Plains are in a Windy Advisory until 8 PM this evening. This means that sustained winds of 25-35 mph with gusts of up to 50 mph through the evening. These strong southwesterly winds will make north/south travel very difficult, and we will even continue to see some blowing dust through the evening.
Winds will subside overnight tonight, although they will remain relatively breezy at 15-20 mph. The wind will then shift overnight to the north as the passage of a cold front works its way through the area. This cold front is going to give us drastic changes by tomorrow. High temperatures tomorrow will fall at least ten degree from today into the mid 50s. While that may seem chilly, the real cold air comes by Saturday as high temperatures will struggle to reach the upper 40s.
This brief shot of cold air won’t last for long. By Sunday, things will return back into the 70s and as we being a new week, we’re watching temperatures soar into the 80s.
In terms of precipitation, this forecast will be very quiet. Rainfall that we had last night brought amounts anywhere from a tenth of an inch to a quarter of an inch. We did have some locally higher amounts do to strong thunderstorm activity creating intense rainfall. Lubbock International Airport came in at 0.25″ of rainfall while Paducah saw the highest accumulations of 1.40″. While the airport didn’t receive a large amount of rainfall, this still puts us in a surplus of 1.75″ of rainfall so far for the month of March. Unfortunately, this will be the only rain we will see for the near future as a dry trend begins.
-Meteorologist Kellianne Klass
Facebook: Meteorologist Kellianne Klass
Twitter: @KellianneWX