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