The speed of frontal boundaries is often tricky. When the seasons change, the speed of the fronts is even more difficult to decipher. On top of that, generally speaking, fronts tend to be inconsistent when passing across the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.
With all of that said, here we are on a Thursday morning looking to the northwest waiting for the next front to push through the panhandles. The computer weather models are in decent agreement, though this time of year that doesn’t necessarily mean as much.
Most of our computer weather models push the front through places like Dalhart, Texas and Guymon, Oklahoma between 12pm and 1pm, Amarillo, Texas and Canadian, Texas between 2pm and 3pm and through Friona, Texas and Clarendon, Texas between 4pm and 5pm.
This morning, though, there was one weather model, the NAM, that kept it north longer and pushed it through everywhere listed about about two or three hours later. That meant warmer temperatures across the area as the wind would continue from the southwest rather than switch back to the north.
There is an interesting phenomena that happens with cold fronts across the TExas panhandle in the fall and – sometimes – in the spring. They tend to slow down as they approach the Canadian River. Sometimes they can even get “hung up” at the river for an entire afternoon before blasting south as the sun sets.
Even though the NAM computer weather model doesn’t “know” that, it would appear that is what it was forecasting. But, there is some indication that the other models were correct and that front will slide through the area at the original times – between 12pm and 5pm.
If so, be prepared for a slightly cooler day with highs in the upper 50s and low 60s rather than the low to mid 60s.
