The combination of the cold front that is slowly moving east across New Mexico, along with Southeast flow across West Texas has lead to the development of a dryline along the Texas/New Mexico border that will play a key role in this evening’s forecast. The winds picked up early today with speeds between 25-50+MPH. Damaging wind gusts will continue to be an issue over the next 24 hours. Late afternoon today through early evening tomorrow we are expecting showers and thunderstorms to form bringing us some much needed rain and unfortunately, a chance for severe weather. The Storm Prediction Center has placed the Western portions of the South Plains under the Slight Risk Category. This includes Curry, Roosevelt, and Lea counties in New Mexico and Parmer, Bailey, Cochran, Yoakum, and Terry counties in Texas. Biggest threats will be large hail and damaging wind gusts with an isolated tornado threat so make sure to stay weather aware!
Activity will end by Saturday evening, allowing for a slow warm up into the beginning of next week and the return of sunshine to the forecast. This will be short-lived though as we watch for yet another chance for rain by the middle of next week.