Amarillo, Texas: Tornado Watch Covers the Panhandle as Severe Storms Race In Overnight

A line of severe thunderstorms was racing out of eastern New Mexico into the Texas Panhandle late Sunday night, under a tornado watch that covers Amarillo and much of the Panhandle until 2 a.m. CST on Monday.

The National Weather Service in Amarillo issued Tornado Watch 700 at 8:20 p.m. CST on Sunday. The watch covers 13 counties in the Texas Panhandle, including Carson, Dallam, Deaf Smith, Hansford, Hartley, Hutchinson, Moore, Ochiltree, Oldham, Potter, Randall, Roberts and Sherman, and two counties in the Oklahoma Panhandle, Cimarron and Texas. The cities in the watch area include Amarillo, Borger, Canyon, Dalhart, Dumas, Hereford, Perryton, Spearman and Stratford in Texas, and Boise City in Oklahoma.

Storms arrive after 10 p.m.

Texas Storm Chasers, which is carrying live coverage of the storms overnight, said a cluster of storms in eastern New Mexico was moving east and northeast quickly into the Panhandle, with the main window running from about 10 p.m. Sunday to 4 a.m. Monday. The western Panhandle and the New Mexico state line were first in line, roughly 10 p.m. to midnight, with Amarillo and the Interstate 40 corridor expected to see the storms around midnight to 1 a.m.

Forecasters said localized damaging wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph are possible, and strong low-level wind shear, unusual this far west in November, means brief tornadoes could spin up inside the line of storms. Those tornadoes are hard to see at night and can be wrapped in rain, and warnings may give residents little lead time. Hail is less of a concern because the storms may stay fairly shallow, and isolated flooding is possible in the northern Panhandle where heavier rain passes over the same spots.

A rare November setup

The Storm Prediction Center placed parts of central and eastern New Mexico and the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles under a slight risk of severe thunderstorms for Sunday, with a 5 percent probability of tornadoes and a 15 percent probability of damaging winds in the most exposed areas. No tornado damage had been confirmed late Sunday.

Anyone in the watch area should have a way to receive warnings overnight, and should move to an interior room on the lowest floor, away from windows, if a tornado warning is issued for their location. Gusts near 75 mph can snap trees, take down power lines and push high-profile vehicles around on Interstate 40 and Interstate 27.

What happens Monday

The storms are expected to move into Oklahoma by sunrise, and strong west winds will follow across the Panhandle and the South Plains on Monday, gusting near 45 mph. After about 2 p.m. Monday, new storms could fire in the Concho Valley, the Big Country, Northwest Texas and Texoma, with hail, damaging winds and a couple of tornadoes possible there, Texas Storm Chasers said.