High Plains rain chances… No, seriously!

I know it feels like forever since the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles have received any rainfall. While it hasn’t been THAT long in the grand scheme of things it has been almost two full months since we received .10″ of rain or more.

Seriously. Our last rainfall of .10″ or more was March, 8th.

In fact, since the Blizzard of ’13 Amarillo has only tallied .20″ of an inch of total precipitation. Most of that coming in bursts of .01″ here or .03″ there.

But our luck is about to change – sort of.

6z NAM
Total Precip

As our weather pattern becomes a little more active, rain chances will be on the rise. In saying that, unfortunately, we may lack the low-leve moisture necessary to get any good, soaking, rains. But instead of going a week between .01″ of rain we will be going 12 to 18 hours between .05″ of rain ehre and .20″ rain there.

What are we looking at? Glad you asked!

As one of two area of low-pressure track our direction we will increase the lift in the atmosphere out ahead of them. That will allow clouds to form and eventually rain to fall.

The NAM computer weather model is one of our short/medium range models that often handles the next 72 hours rather well. Below it shows a chance for showers and storms across the area today, tomorrow and Wednesday.

Monday Afternoon
Tuesday Afternoon
Wednesday Afternoon

Again, in saying that we’ll have to see if there is enough low-level moisture to get all of those raindrops all the way to the ground.

But it is nice to see the chance for rain across the area.



Author of the article:


Nick Lilja

Nick is former television meteorologist with stints in Amarillo and Hattiesburg. During his time in Hattiesburg, he was also an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is a graduate of both Oregon State and Syracuse University that now calls Houston home. Now that he is retired from TV, he maintains this blog in his spare time.