2023 Year in Review

The first in what became a series of strong upper level systems passed northeast over the Panhandles on February 14th. The upper level system rapidly strengthened as it passed to the northeast, leading to the development of a corridor of very intense winds out of the north on the back side of the system. These damaging wind gusts, as high as 84 mph at the Guymon airport, led to a dust storm in the northeastern Panhandles. Farther south, strong gusts to around 60 to 70 mph out of the southwest occurred.

Going into the 15th a cold front slowly moved across the area beginning in the early morning hours. Behind this front, cold air dropped temperatures below freezing and moisture increased at the lower levels. With the upper level system moving closer to the area, this provided enough lift to generate precipitation along and behind the cold front for mainly the northern half of the Panhandles. Snow was the main precipitation type with this system. However, some rain and sleet was also reported in a few locations. Gusty northerly winds also trailed behind the cold front which led to greatly reduced visibility along with the heavy falling snow. In general, a majority of the northern half of the Panhandles received 2 or more inches of snow with the highest snow total with this system being 8 inches for the far western Oklahoma Panhandle. With temperatures dropping quickly behind the front, any snow and slush that had melted on roadways quickly froze. This caused hazardous driving conditions on the morning of February 16.

A vigorous upper level storm system passed through the Southern Great Plains on February 26th, 2023. This brought widespread strong winds and blowing dust which led to visibility restrictions. It also brought severe storms with large hail, and a couple tornadoes. The severe thunderstorms were out ahead of the main Pacific front and mainly impacted the eastern combined Panhandles. The stronger of the two tornadoes produced EF-1 damage on an outbuilding in Wheeler County. Widespread blowing dust due to strong winds out of the west behind the Pacific front led to visibility restrictions that caused vehicle accidents near Adrian and Dalhart, Texas. The largest reported hail stone from one of the severe storms was golf ball size hail 5 miles east of McLean, Texas. The strongest measured wind gust from the high winds was 87 mph at Stratford, Texas.

To see additional photos as well as mapped out tornado tracks, click on the button above.

Breezy and gusty winds were present across the combined Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles during the afternoon of the 4th. Sustained winds were around 30-45 mph out of the southwest with gusts as high as 55-57 mph. Several locations in the OK gusted to 58 mph or slightly higher, while one location in the TX Panhandle did see sustained winds around 40 to 45 mph for two hours.

A unique and rare weather pattern characterized by persistent low pressure over the Desert Southwest lead to multiple days of widespread heavy rain for the combined Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. The heavy rain was mainly due to the fact that the atmosphere was relatively warm and very moist, with total atmospheric moisture above the 90th percentile to near daily max values with subtropical moisture being pumped into the area. There was also some severe weather, but hail sizes rarely were above the size of quarters and damaging wind reports were not common. The flooding reports were numerous, however. Many of the area rivers and creeks were approaching record levels, and many locations were impacts by flash flooding as well.

Multiple days of heavy rain resulted in area rivers and creeks flooding, including the Canadian River and the Prairie Dog Town Forks of the Red River. The Tierra Blanca Creek. The Wolf Creek and Palo Duro Creek were also flooding over their banks. There were several impacts along these rivers and creeks, including the evacuation of Valley De Oro along the Canadian River, the closing of Palo Duro State Park, and the closing of Southeast Park in Canyon as waters flooded most of the area baseball fields and dog park. By the end of May many locations had seen a monthly rain total anywhere from 6 to 14 inches of rainfall (with a few even higher). Most of the area was already at or above half of the annual rainfall by June 1st. A couple of notable events include May 27th when the Hereford area saw major flash flooding with over 2 inches of rain falling in just 40 minutes (some isolated locations saw over 8 inches of rain outside of Hereford). The Canyon/Umbarger area saw 3 to 5 inches on the evening and overnight of May 31st, while most of the remaining area saw 1-3 inches. Amarillo and Canyon both saw flash flooding which caused cars to be swept off roadways resulting in numerous water rescues. 2 to 4 inches of rain over western Lipscomb County during the afternoon of June 2nd caused flooding downstream on the Wolf Creek at Lipscomb. The final major event was during the overnight period on June 7th when a broken line of storms moved in from the northwest that filled in and strengthened just as they moved into the Amarillo area. Heavy rainfall produced anywhere from 0.5" to 1.5" across Amarillo and this lead to major flash flooding as water escaped from the already full Lawrence Lake and flooded area streets, businesses, and residents in that area.  Over 200 people and 50 pets had to be rescued. 

During the evening of June 15th, 2023, a line of storms with embedded supercells formed over portions of southwest Kansas and extended south through Beaver County, OK into the northeastern portions of the Texas Panhandle. The farthest south supercell produced a tornado that tracked through Perryton, killing three people and leaving a path of destruction over 6 miles long. Several other landspout tornadoes developed farther south of Perryton along the flanking line of the tornadic supercell. One of these landspouts damaged some power poles but remained mostly in open grassland. An additional tornado developed south of Higgins and tracked eastward into western Oklahoma, also remaining mostly in open grassland.

The Perryton tornado was the first fatal tornado to occur in the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles since  March 28th, 2007 , when one person died near Canadian, TX and two people died in south central Beaver County, OK. Additionally, this was the first tornado to cause a recorded injury in the Panhandles since the May 27th, 2015 tornado near Canadian, TX.

The historic rainfall in May wiped out much of the drought conditions through the combined OK/TX Panhandles. About mid June the I-40 corridor across the central to southern Texas Panhandle slipped back into Moderate (D1) and Severe (D2) drought and remained through the rest of the year with some relief during a heavy rain event in December.

An upper level low pressure system moved over southern California and then Arizona by Wednesday afternoon, 13th December. With decent mid level lift ahead of the system across the southern High Plains, along with good moisture transport from the eastern Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, several rounds of rain occurred across the combined Panhandles on the 13th and again on the 14th. During the early AM hours Thursday morning (12/14), the NW Panhandles changed over to snow where 2-4" occurred before noon on the 14th. During the afternoon much of the northwest as well as the central Oklahoma Panhandle saw light precipitation that periodically changed back into snow or a rain/snow mix. However, surface temperatures just above freezing had the snow melting on contact, especially on pavement. Rain persisted in the eastern combined Panhandles throughout the day on Thursday the 14th, with some isolated thunderstorms developing over the central Texas Panhandle during the afternoon.  As the center of the upper level low pressure system passed over the northern combined Panhandles Thursday night into early Friday morning, wrap around moisture met with colder overnight temperatures allowing for a band of snow to accumulate across the north central and northeastern combined OK/ TX Panhandles. This light band of snow that developed on the backside of the departing low brought 1-2" of snowfall reaching from Stratford TX ENE towards Beaver, OK. As soon as the sun came up and the rest of the clouds exited the area, the accumulated snow across the north central and northeastern combined Panhandles melted quickly with warm temperatures and the nature of the wet heavy snow. 

Precipitation totals across the Panhandles ranged from just under an inch to just over 5" for portions of the SE TX Panhandle. Snowfall ratios were 4-5:1, where heavy wet snow occurred which did impose some minor impacts to travel in the NW Panhandles. Overall this was an abnormally wet system for a Panhandle December, putting the majority of the area well above the December normal for liquid precipitation.