Chasing the Wind

Special Update #2
By Aaron Graves

I sat at the corner of Hwy 87 and the Etter road. To my south the rain had let up enough I could see some low hanging SLC's (Scary Looking Clouds). To the north, Dalhart was disappearing behind a curtain of rain so heavy and thick it dumped a half inch of water in just 10 minutes. It was the second such rain event in three days, and I was parked right on the edge if it. 

It was an impressive site. Along Hwy 87 a train sat still on the railroad tracks. Even it began to slowly disappear, being swallowed up by the downpour. However, the storm was doing more than providing much needed water. 

It was wrecking havoc on our town's trees. 

Twigs, branches, and whole trees were blown down. A power pole on Hwy 87 fell, knocking the lights out on the southeast side of town.


The storm, part of a squall line, rolled in Sunday evening about 8:30. By the time I had a chance to drive around and observe the damage for myself, it was already dark. Cleanup began early Monday morning before I was able to continue my observations. Thus, the map above is just a rough estimate of what I personally saw at the time.


North of the yellow outline, I could not find a single twig down. Inside the yellow outline, small twigs were laying in the road here and there. Inside the blue outline, the branches got bigger and more numerous. 11th street seemed to be a focal point for tree damage. 

So, what caused such a noticeable damage path? Dalhart was under a tornado watch at the time. However, I saw no major structural damage, so I ruled out a weak tornado, in which wind speeds would have reached 70, 80 or 90 mph. 

Squall lines, however, are known for generating strong, straight-line winds. That being said, this storm was not severe when it hit Dalhart. The National Weather Service in Amarillo measured a peak gust of only 48 mph at the local airport. So, what accounts for the downed trees and the damage path along 11th Street?

Todd Lindley, Science and Operations Officer at the Amarillo NWS, told me a 50 mph wind is strong enough to down trees especially when the ground is saturated.  

He added: “It is entirely possible that a squall line, or any wind storm for that matter, could easily contain a "corridor" of enhanced winds. In fact, that is probably pretty likely here, given that all observation sites and spotters around the Dalhart area at the time of the storm only received gusts of about 50 mph. This tells me the area covered by the damaging winds must have been small. This could be from some sort of locally enhanced wind associated with a microburst, possibly a gustnado, or perhaps just a swath of stronger wind.”

I've seen gustnadoes spin up and scare everyone nearby into thinking a tornado was coming. They are usually visible out ahead of the rain on storms that have developed a gust front. Those are the storms where it gets real windy before it starts raining. That is not what I saw Sunday. 

A wet microburst, as the name implies, usually involves a rush of strong wind embedded inside the rain core. In other words, it starts raining, and then the wind hits. This is what I witnessed parked along Hwy 87. 

Since only a few trees were downed, along with only one power pole, I don't believe the microburst was very strong. But I believe there was one, based on the path of tree damage along 11th Street and the surrounding area.