Severe storms possible east of Lubbock today

Severe storms possible east of Lubbock today

The risk for severe weather will shift farther east of Lubbock today with a couple of mostly sunny and hot days in store for most of our area.

STORM RECAP: We did have severe storms again yesterday. The dry line was right on top of Lubbock by peak heating. Storms developed near it and moved to the northeast. For a while they actually had a tough time maintaining themselves once they moved off the dry line. There was some golf ball-size hail at Petersburg and Silverton. Full list of yesterday's reports here.

There was a large tornado between about 9:30 and 10 in northern Motley County. While it was dark, some trained storm spotters were able to catch a glimpse during lightning strikes, seeing a large funnel on the ground. Radar data also showed strong rotation, with dual-polarization data showing some debris lofted fairly high in the storm. The really fortunate news is we don't have any reports of anyone hurt or any major damage because this strong tornado moved over rural northern Motley County. A sign of just how strong it was...this tornado started ignoring the mean flow and was doing its own thing. It started moved northwest, toward Turkey. Thankfully it didn't move into the hometown of Bob Wills.

TODAY: The dry line is expected to mix well east of Lubbock. It'll reach the low 90s, mostly sunny in Lubbock...a few degrees hotter to the west, wind SW 12-25mph. East of the dry line severe storms will be possible late this afternoon into the evening over the eastern Texas Panhandle and Rolling Plains. Like the past few days, the main severe risk is very large hail. A few tornadoes are possible in the yellow highlighted area:

TOMORROW: It'll be slightly warmer Wednesday afternoon, high near 95, SW wind 15-25mph.

THURSDAY: The dry line should set up somewhere east of Lubbock Thursday. This is where severe storms will be possible. A few models show the dry line backing Thursday evening, with some lift passing across the region. Because of this we have a slight chance for storms Thursday evening about as far west as Lubbock.

EXTENDED FORECAST: The dry line will be well east of here Friday and Saturday, which means our area should miss any of the storms. The humidity will return beginning Sunday. This is when storms are next expected. Like we've seen this week, the coverage is fairly limited...so the chance for a storm at any one location isn't great. But based on modeling now and with this being the usual peak of severe weather season here, we do expect some severe storms around West Texas Sunday and Monday.

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Have a great day. Check back here for updates later today. Rudy will have a full update later this afternoon.
-Matt