We're Going to Have A Bad Drought Soon...
And it will definitely affect next year's tornado season.
Hello from a way too warm and way too nice Oklahoma on this Christmas morning! We’ve got a few more days to enjoy the nice weather before a more seasonal feel returns.
1. Cold Front is Coming, But It Will Be A Dry One
I wish I had better news on this one, but the cold front that’s going to knock us off our record warm temperatures is going to pass through mostly dry this next week.
Model Consensus: Both the Euro and GFS have trended significantly lower on possible precipitation from this passing system over the Plains, with the vast majority of precipitation staying east.
Drought Increasing: Drought conditions are continuing to deteriorate across the Plains. Look at the two-month change map below:
Storm Season will be affected: While it definitely doesn’t mean a quieter Spring, most big drought years are best described as boom or bust seasons, mostly due to the presence of a hotter and drier cap source region in SE NM and West Texas.
Many seasons with strong drought in that region feature fewer overall chase days, which can lead to very quiet years like 2018 or 2020.
However, there are just as many years like 2011 or 2013 when the drought was strong, just the jet stream’s power was stronger.
What we’re watching: We’ll be watching how drought conditions across SE NM and West Texas evolve in the coming months, and how drought over the Southern High Plains evolves. These can affect our cap strength throughout Spring and how far east the median dryline sets up, especially early on.
2. High Plains Supercell With a Large Wall Cloud
The moment a supercell moving off the Rocky Mountains developed a large, ominous wall cloud that had me thinking a tornado might drop at any second...
May 29, 2025, was one of those days with just enough of everything in a small area in Northeast New Mexico. I figured it was worth a shot. A supercell would be nice, and a tornado would be the unexpected top-end possibility if everything could line up right. As I closed in on Springer, New Mexico, it became clear this supercell was cranking right on up...
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