Blog Article

Texas Festival Season Meets a Texas-Sized Dryline

Severe storms and heavy rain threaten major Texas music festivals this weekend. Learn how a sharpening dryline will impact Midland and Dallas.

Texas Festival Season Meets a Texas-Sized Dryline

Get this, y'all. People are still searching the internet for information on that rare tornado warning in California's Central Valley yesterday. It is definitely unusual to see funnel clouds out there. But the massive storm system responsible for that west coast weirdness is now setting its sights on Texas. And it is picking a terrible weekend to do it.

Saturday is a massive day for outdoor live music in the Lone Star State. You have the Basin Red Dirt BBQ and Music Festival out in Midland. Over in Dallas, the Breakaway Music Festival and a huge country and blues event are expecting thousands of fans. If you have tickets to any of these, you need a solid backup plan.

The West Texas Setup

We will look at West Texas first. The Storm Prediction Center has outlined a Level 2 out of 5 risk for severe thunderstorms Saturday from Lubbock down through Midland and Odessa.

A classic spring dryline is sharpening up across the region. Think of a dryline as a sharp boundary. On one side, you have hot, bone-dry air from the desert. On the other, you have rich, humid air pumping in from the Gulf of Mexico. When that dry air advances, it acts like a wedge. It forces the moist air up into the atmosphere fast.

By mid-afternoon, we expect scattered thunderstorms to explode along this boundary. The main threats are 70 mph wind gusts and hail up to the size of golf balls. That is not the kind of breeze you want around outdoor stages and massive BBQ smokers.

The Dallas Deluge

As the sun goes down, those individual storms in West Texas are going to merge into a large cluster and roll east. That brings us to Dallas and Central Texas.

The Weather Prediction Center has highlighted this area with a Slight Risk for excessive rainfall through the weekend. A low-level jet stream is going to act like a fire hose, pumping Gulf moisture straight into these storms. The ground is going to get soaked. We are looking at a growing threat for flash flooding from the Hill Country straight up the I-35 corridor to south of Dallas.

Usually, Dallas sees high temperatures around 77 degrees this time of year. It will feel plenty warm and muggy before the rain hits. Once those storms train over the same areas, the water will pile up fast.

Music festivals are a great way to spend a spring weekend. Getting caught in a severe thunderstorm with thousands of other people is not. Know where the solid, enclosed shelters are before the first band plays. Keep an eye on the radar on your phone. If the wind picks up and the sky gets dark, do not wait for the music to stop before you head for cover.

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