Thunderstorm Wind — Kent, Texas

2020-05-23 · near Jayton, Kent, Texas

Event narrative

A Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet site near Jayton measured a wind gust to 64 mph.

Wider weather episode

Widespread supercell thunderstorms developed across the South Plains on the afternoon and evening of the 23rd producing very large hail, a tornado, and flash flooding.

From the night of the 22nd through the morning of the 23rd, a dryline surged westward allowing abundant low level moisture to return to the region. This dryline mixed to the east during the afternoon stalling around US Highway 385. A capping inversion initially kept convective initiation from occurring until late in the afternoon under a very unstable atmosphere with CAPE values in excess of 4000 J/kg. Initially, the most intense thunderstorm developed and became anchored over southwestern Garza County. This supercell exhibited strong rotation at low and mid levels of the storm. Several storm chasers observed a tornado over open land that lasted for about 11 minutes. Because of the very slow storm motion of this thunderstorm, the tornado was nearly stationary for its entire lifetime. A lack of roads in the path of the tornado prevented a storm survey from being completed, thus this tornado could not be rated.

Heavy rain fell over an extended period of time in Garza County due to the storm's nearly stationary movement. As a result, a portion of Farm to Market road 669 south of Post was washed out.

The thunderstorms that developed in the southeastern South Plains generated a strong outflow boundary which then moved through the central South Plains. This outflow boundary caused scattered thunderstorms to grow over Lubbock County in which many of these became severe over multiple parts of the city of Lubbock. Hail up to two inches was reported in the city of Lubbock along with wind gusts up to 62 mph. This outflow boundary continued to move northward creating additional severe thunderstorms over the extreme south-central Texas Panhandle. One of these storms produced hail up to three inches in diameter in the city of Silverton (Briscoe County) leading to widespread damage to vehicles.

Trailing stratiform precipitation from decaying thunderstorms generated a couple of non-thunderstorm severe wind gusts. One of these occurred at Caprock Canyons State Park where a Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet site measured a wind gust to 58 mph. The other was at the Automated Surface Observing System at Childress Municipal Airport measuring a gust to 58 mph.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.2366, -100.5734)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 888878. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.