Dalhart Weather Review
By Aaron Graves
UPDATE: This blog post is a combination of the last two articles that appeared in "The County Times Two", with relevant updates.
The National Weather Service in Amarillo held a press conference Thursday, May 22, in which the last 43 months were declared to be the driest ever for the Texas Panhandle since record keeping began. The atmosphere, however, acted as if it got caught with its proverbial hand in the cookie jar. Soon after the press conference, the heavens opened up for a multi-day rain event, as if the atmosphere was saying “Historic drought? What drought? Ain’t no drought here!”
Rain began in earnest Thursday evening and continued through Sunday. The NWS reports a total of 1.22” of rain fell at the airport Thursday thru Sunday. In town, my rain gauge picked up 1.75”. Channing reported 2.32” to the NWS by Monday morning.
Texaspivot.com displayed a 72 hour running rain total online Saturday evening. Farmland near Dalhart received anywhere from 1” to 1.5”. The Hartley area received between 0.75” and 1.25”. In western Hartley county, near Romero, rain totals approached 1.75”. The Texline area saw 1” to 1.25”. Rain on Sunday was more localized, staying mostly in southern Hartley county, which is not represented on Texaspivot.com.
It seems all of the Texas panhandle got much needed rainfall. A graphic from the NWS (included in this blog post) shows most areas got at least an inch. Rain totals up to 4" were seen in the Amarillo and Hereford areas. Storms fired up as far south as Lubbock, causing localized flooding in places.
Dalhart had only received 0.30” of precipitation since January 1, 2014. That was actually less moisture for the year compared to the same time period in 2011 when the drought first intensified. We now have 1.38” for the year (this includes 0.15" from a short but intense thunderstorm on May 17.)
We are still in a historic drought, but at least it took the weekend off! We will look at the NWS press conference in more detail next blog. Suffice it to say, our current drought is worse than the drought of the 1950's, and worse than the infamous Dust Bowl era of the 1930's.
“As of today (May 20), all counties in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles are currently experiencing Exceptional Drought (D4) conditions,” read a NWS press release. “This historic drought began in the fall of 2010 and intensified in 2011 and again during the first half of 2014. Even though periods of short term drought relief have occurred since 2010, long term drought impacts still persist.”
So, how does it feel it to be historic? Kind of makes me thirsty.
High and low temps since last update
May 6: 90, 45
May 7: 88, 49
May 8: 77, 42
May 9: 80, 40
May 10: 90, 44
May 11: 91, 45
May 12: 57, 41
May 13: 58, 39
May 14: 67, 35
May 15: 76, 42
May 16: 87, 41
May 17: 81, 49
May 18: 88, 51
May 19: 96, 55
May 20: 95, 52
May 21: 85, 52
May 22: 86, 51
May 23: 71, 58
May 24: 75, 56
May 25: 75, 50
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