Normally I love the Panhandle. Today is not one of those days. Horrible winds out of the west, extreme fire danger.

Xcel Energy shut down power to the farm as of about 8:44 this morning. I've been getting robo calls for two days warning me. They don't want a repeat of last year's disaster, so they are disconnecting a lot of rural lines, but keeping the cities connected for now.

TTech has a system of weather stations you can access here:

https://mesonet.ttu.edu/

Wind speeds as of 10:15 this morning



Peak wind gusts at the time



It is not going to be a fun day.

Traffic pileup, wreck caused by blowing dust

I saw a report of 81 mph wind at the Lubbock airport

77 is the highest I've heard up here so far. Lots of 18 wheelers blown over around Amarillo.

I-27 between Canyon and Happy closed. Lots of problems down I-40, too

We took the camper to the RV park earlier in the week on City Lake Rd in Canyon, enjoyed the stay and the state parks but I was glad to be gone before all that wind was coming in. Looking at your map, I bet power is off at the rv park today.

Satellite is showing the second round of dust for today. We are seeing gusts up to 70-80 mph across the region. #lubwx #txwx pic.twitter.com/pmBiAvCToz

— NWS Lubbock (@NWSLubbock) March 14, 2025

Put this system over the Gulf and the weathermen would give it a name

We are driving through it. Currently 80 mi west of Lubbock.

Always fun to get up to our panhandle deer lease in the fall to see how many tower blinds have been blown over by high winds

Sorry it is Facebook, but Boeing is test flying their 777x aircraft in Lubbock today. Gluttons for punishment

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CvJp1UL3E/

They'd evacuate Harris County if that was a hurricane.

Seeing reports of a 50 car pile up south of canyon

WestTxWood88 said:

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Seeing reports of a 50 car pile up south of canyon

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where are you seeing this?

Video on YT as well

I think it's the same one CanyonAg posted about above.

I used to farm a place right next to I-27 in that area.

Thank goodness I don't work that land any longer, I suspect the owners and operators might be sued/blamed

RK said:

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We are driving through it. Currently 80 mi west of Lubbock.

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dayummm, that's apocalyptic

Damn -- that's tough to watch. That silver minivan looked bad, and it's hard to imagine someone walking away from whatever that blue car is at 0:50.

My daughter is in nursing school and works as a nurse Tech at NW Hospital. She was called in to the ER, it was all hands on deck. She will probably see things she has never seen before. Proud of her for answering the call. We've been here 11 years and I think this might be the worst wind day we have seen. Maybe the 2019 event was worse. Seems like we have a lot more wrecks than I remember from that day.

Damn...Panhandle has some good things to offer (most people, and summer/ fall nights)...spring days are not typically one of them.

Anyone in that area know how bad the fires were (I know at least two on the south side of Plainview, but haven't heard much else.

It wasn't a good day in Abilene, but at least we didn't match your wind speeds. Not fun!

CanyonAg77 said:

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I used to farm a place right next to I-27 in that area.

Thank goodness I don't work that land any longer, I suspect the owners and operators might be sued/blamed

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Is there fencing in that area? With or without I would have driven way away from that road Out into the field/ pasture once I realized vehicles were crashing into the stopped vehicles.

Pretty much 5 strand barbed wire on both sides. However, it's interstate with service roads and wide medians between pavement and wide ditches

Though if you can't see, you wouldn't know, and most people would be afraid to drive in the grass

Why would any sane truck driver take a semi out in that kind of wind?

We left Amarillo at 5am to beat the winds. Glad we did!

Isn't "sane truck driver" an oxymoron?

I drove through Northwest Oklahoma this afternoon. It wasn't quite as bad as the pictures above but you couldn't see grain elevators and water towers until you got right up on them. The State DOT some highways on my usual route closed so I had to detour some backroads that I hadn't driven in years.



You can hardly make out the wind towers at Mom's place.

Hope everything is going ok at your place OP

We loved Palo Duro and the afternoon we spent yesterday at Caprock. After considering the forecast, we never setup the tent and drove the 8 hour drive home late last night…so glad we did!! Thank you for the recommendations…we will likely be back to spend more time in that area.

They let us leave work early today so no one was trying to do it in low light. Visibility was about 20 yards on Business 20 between odessa and midland. I pulled into a parking lot and waited until it settled a little. I cannot imagine trying to continue up north.

Spoke to a friend who's BQ daughter was headed to Denver to a wedding of a corps buddy. Got caught up in a large pile up in eastern Colorado from a sandstorm. At least one fatality. Luckily daughter was ok. Many cars involved and in the middle of nowhere

What is the protocol with the turbines in that much wind? Shut down completely? Some sort of governor system?