Forecasters with the National Weather Service have called Friday their “day of biggest concern” this week for dangerous fire weather conditions across a broad slice of the southern Great Plains and a portion of the Southwest and even into the Midwest.
A strong storm barreling across the country is expected to drive gusty winds and dry air across the desiccated landscape of eastern New Mexico and Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Any wildfires that start could spread rapidly in this region.
The winds are expected to be strongest and the fire risk highest in an area extending from north Texas across central Oklahoma into southeast Kansas and including a smidgen of Missouri. Wind speeds could top 90 miles per hour in the most extreme cases.
“A wildfire outbreak is possible in that corridor,” said Harry Weinman, a meteorologist at the Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.
The Storm Prediction Center warned that conditions here would be “extremely critical,” a rare designation that has been used on three other occasions this month in the southern Plains. It was most recently issued on Wednesday, but for a smaller area than the one on Friday. It’s typically used only once or twice a year in the southern Plains.
The agency also warned that isolated dry thunderstorms could bring heightened fire risk to eastern Kansas, northeast Oklahoma, western Missouri and far northwest Arkansas. Dry thunderstorms can generate thunder and lightning but produce little to no rain on the ground. Any lightning strike that hits the ground can easily start a wildfire, especially when it’s windy.
Separately, the National Weather Service has released fire weather watches and red-flag warnings across the Southwest and the southern Plains. (Fire weather risk levels describe how actively a fire may burn, and an “extremely critical” risk corresponds to weather that can make a fire extremely difficult to contain.)
The winds could also kick up dust and create conditions similar to those that occurred in early March, when Texas, New Mexico and parts of Mexico were shrouded by a thick curtain of dust.
“There will likely be a significant amount of blowing dust across the southern Plains tomorrow,” said Evan Bentley, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center. “It’s unknown how much that will impact visibility on roads.”
On Thursday, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas preemptively issued a state of emergency declaration, and urged “everyone across the state to use extreme caution and avoid burning.”
Dormant grasses in southern Plains are “ready to burn.”
Heightened wildfire risk has occurred intermittently in the southern Plains all month, which isn’t unusual in winter, when dry, blustery weather is common. Grasses are also dormant and more flammable at this time of year.
“It’s not until April when our grasses start to green up when the fire risk decreases,” Mr. Bentley said. “The grasses are essentially like dry timber, ready to burn, right now.”
While some parts of the region, including central Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, received rain in the last seven days, the grass and shrubbery are likely to have already dried out in these areas.
Firefighters from the Texas A&M Forest Service have responded to 75 fires since the start of the month, compared with 21 in the same time frame last year. Mr. Bentley said this year had been “unusually active” with fire weather.
The fire weather conditions are expected to continue through the weekend and into next week but will be especially high on Friday because of the cross-country storm.
The system that walloped California with rain and snow and spawned a tornado earlier this week was moving east into the central High Plains on Friday morning, propelling strong winds into the southern Plains. Sustained winds of 35 to 45 m.ph. are expected to be common across the region on Friday, with isolated gusts up to 70 mph and up to 90 mph in the most extreme cases.
Mr. Bentley said it was unusual for the region to be hit with such strong winds when there were no thunderstorms and skies were clear.
“It’s the top of the scale of what you can get for winds,” he said.
On Saturday, the wildfire threat will remain, and it is expected to be most severe in southern and southwest Texas, an area of the state that is in a drought. Conditions could be slightly improved Sunday, before the threat returns to the southern Plains on Monday and Tuesday with increased winds.
“It’s that season,” Mr. Bentley said. “It s expected to remain active for the foreseeable future across the southern Plains.”
Mitch Smith contributed reporting.