AccuWeather's Jon Porter warns of an extreme fire danger for western Texas and the southwestern Plains. Dry weather and wind gusts of 40-80 mph will create dangerous conditions for fires.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00John let's get right to the upper air map here. I want to show you this as it lifts north and east
00:06I'm going to stop this in the early afternoon and look at all of that red showing you a lot of wind energy across the
00:13Texas Panhandle
00:14Tremendous wind energy that's dropping in here and notice all these lines in close proximity
00:19This showcases how strong the winds are going to be across the southern plains
00:24This can be a historic wind event and dust storm event here with a wildfire risk, too
00:30We've already had wind gusts Melissa was just showing over 80 miles per hour near Lubbock
00:34And you know it's one thing to have these kind of winds John
00:3760 to 70 80 miles per hour in the Texas Panhandle
00:41But we're extending the belt of strong winds all the way in the southeastern Kansas
00:46Right all the way up through Oklahoma including the Oklahoma City area southeast Kansas toward Kansas City
00:51Lots of power outages and travel issues across this entire area
00:55And this is a real concern here John two big concerns. You know what we've been doing this a long time whenever the wind blows this
01:03strong and this long
01:05Fires are unfortunately going to burn they are and they would normally but especially since it's been so dry in West, Texas
01:11That's going to amplify the fire risk any flame or spark can lead to a devastating
01:16Wildfire be on the lookout in these areas for any evacuation notices from local officials for fires this afternoon and widespread dust storms
01:25John big problems i-40 i-44 i-20 and i-10
01:30Visibility can be reduced to near zero at times in dust storms
01:34And we've already had major flight delays already coming in out of Dallas Fort Worth
01:40International