Texas Panhandle Braces for Damaging Hail and Wind: Weather Watch

Severe thunderstorms are set to sweep across Texas Panhandle, including Lubbock and Amarillo on Thursday. The risk will drop on Friday and Saturday but destructive systems will still be possible, the US Storm Prediction Center said.

“A tumultuous weather pattern sparking several rounds of robust thunderstorms is set to continue throughout much of the central and south-central United States,” Cody Snell, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center, wrote in an outlook. The right mix of unsettled patterns coming across the Rocky Mountains, weather fronts in the Great Plains and moisture flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico area all coming together.

Snell said strong storms are forecast to progress eastward over the the southern Plains on Thursday night. “These thunderstorms may contain large hail and damaging wind gusts, with locations most likely impacted including the Texas Panhandle and parts of western Texas,” he said.

Wild thunderstorms have battered Texas and much of the central US for weeks. This has led to deaths from tornadoes and damaging winds, as well as widespread power outages, particularly across Texas. As of 5:30 a.m. New York time, 192,722 customers were without power in Texas and another 15,876 in Arkansas, according to PowerOutage.us.

In other weather news:

India: Wednesday’s high of 48.8C (120F) was recorded at Rohtak (Haryana), according to the India Meteorological Department. A heat wave has entrenched over much of Punjab, as well as in many parts of Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. “There have been several record highs set across northwest India over the past few days,” said Jason Nicholls, a meteorologist with commercial forecaster AccuWeather Inc. “It will remain hot into the weekend, but it is not expected to be as extreme as the past couple of days.” Heat wave conditions are forecast to gradually improve through the next five days, the department said.

Australia: Damaging winds are possible across elevated areas in Victoria and southern New South Wales, said Sarah Scully, a forecaster with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Wind gust could reach 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour, which is enough to bring down trees and powerlines, causing outages and making travel difficult. Heavy rain will also likely develop across Victoria raising the risk for flash flooding. Tasmania will also be buffeted by high winds and heavy rain Friday, she said.

Sun: Moderate geomagnetic storms are possible May 31 to June 1 as a coronal mass ejection (CME) reaches Earth. The CME is associated with a flare that erupted from the large sunspot complex that created wild aurora displays earlier this month. That cluster has rotated completely around the Sun and is now back on the Earth-facing side of the star, according to the US Space Weather Prediction Center.

To contact the author of this story:
Brian K Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net