Thunderstorm Wind — Randall, Texas

2013-05-28 · near Amarillo, Randall, Texas

Event narrative

Thunderstorms formed along a dryline stretching east-northeastward across Randall and Potter Counties during the afternoon hours of the 28th. These thunderstorms would take a northeast track which allowed them to move over the dryline. This caused the thunderstorms to produce isolated downbursts across the city. One such thunderstorm produced a downburst which snapped two power poles at the intersection of Washington Street and Farmers Road (Randall County). The Amarillo Emergency Manager (Potter and Randall County) relayed the report of damage and the Amarillo Police department were deployed to block off traffic in that area. The thunderstorm decayed quickly after moving to the dry side of the dryline due to ingesting much drier air into the updrafts. No injuries were associated with this gust.

Wider weather episode

A severe weather outbreak brought hail, damaging winds, tornadoes, and flash flooding to the Panhandles from the afternoon of the 28th into the early morning hours of the 29th. The morning upper air analysis on the 28th showed a mid-level shortwave trough rotating around the base of a longwave trough situated from Idaho to Arizona. At the surface, a dryline was situated from the northeastern Oklahoma Panhandle to the southwestern Texas Panhandle. The 6 AM CST upper air sounding from Amarillo showed a low level capping inversion with significant elevated instability. Also deep layer shear was primed for the development of discrete supercells. On the 12 PM CST sounding, instability values had increased further. By noon, the northern portion of the dryline had moved into south central Kansas before stretching back into the southwestern Texas Panhandle.

By the late afternoon, across Potter and Randall Counties, the dryline had advanced into the western portions of both counties allowing showers and thunderstorms, which moved northeastward along dryline, to produce damaging wind gusts in the Amarillo (Potter and Randall County) area. These thunderstorm wind gusts blew a communication tower and billboard down at the Texas Blue Lake Pools in Amarillo (Randall County). Also a main communication tower for High Plains Radio was damaged which ended the broadcast for several of their across the Texas Panhandle radio stations. The Amarillo Police Department blocked off an area near the intersection of Osage Road and SE 27th Ave due to downed power lines and debris. As the dryline moved into the eastern portions of Potter and Randall Counties during the early evening, thunderstorms over the Amarillo area were cut off from moist inflows and decayed quickly. The extremely dry near surface air evaporated precipitation from the decaying storms causing non-thunderstorm high winds across the Amarillo area. These high winds blew the roof off the River Road ISD field house (Randall County) and downed power lines across the city. Xcel Energy reported nearly 6500 people lost power from the combination of thunderstorm and non-thunderstorm wind gusts, and 4000 people would remain without power until the 29th as power lines and poles were repaired or replaced.

During the late evening the dryline began to retreat westward as the nocturnal low level jet transported moisture from the Gulf of Mexico northwestward. As the dryline retreated across Oldham and Deaf Smith Counties, a near stationary discrete supercell formed and produced two short lived tornadoes in Deaf Smith County. These tornadoes formed over grasslands, and produced little damage. As the dryline continued to retreat to the west, the supercell took a northeastward track producing hail up to the size of hen eggs across Deaf Smith and Oldham Counties and produced several funnel clouds.

The storm continued to produce large hail and funnel clouds as it moved into Potter and Randall Counties. This large hail broke out skylights, broke windshields, busted out windows of portables, and damaged work vehicles at schools within the Bushland (Randall County) ISD. As the supercell approached the western portion of Amarillo (Randall and Potter County) several members of the public reported funnel clouds. Video evidence of one such funnel cloud showed the cloud lowering near to the ground, but no physical evidence of a touchdown was able to be identified by National Weather Service survey teams.

What this supercell did produce across Amarillo (Potter and Randall County) was copious amounts of destructive hail up to the size of baseballs and heavy rain. The City of Amarillo reported that 225 of its work vehicles had some form of hail damage with an estimated repair cost between $2000 and $8500. The City Building Safety Director reported approximately 75 percent of homes around the city suffered hail damage of varying degrees. The Amarillo Botanical Gardens suffered massive damage to plants across the four acre property totaling in thousands of dollars of damage. The hail also damaged a greenhouse in the rear portion of the property. The accumulation of hail and heavy rain also flooded the Garden's gallery while the strong winds blew a portion of the perimeter fencing down. Gene Messer Ford and AutoNation Chevrolet-Cadillac reported between 300 and 400 vehicles damaged from the hail with Gene Messer Ford estimating the damage to be between 3 and 4 million dollars. The total estimated of repair cost across the city of Amarillo (Randall and Potter Counties) is near $400 million dollars which dwarfs the June 21, 2004 hail storm which cost the city $175 million dollars.

The supercell continued traveling to the northeast entering into Carson County. Upon entering the county the supercell encountered an increasing unfavorable environment as the nocturnal inversion strengthened. However, before the dissipating the thunderstorm was able to produce quarter size hail in the city of Panhandle (Carson County). The remnants of the supercell proceeded to move to the northeast until dissipating over southern Kansas.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.1700, -101.8600)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 459378. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.