The forecasted moisture over the weekend has provided a small break for many spanning several fronts.
Levelland and Hockley County Emergency Management Coordinator, Cole Kirkland explained that any precipitation is better than nothing.
“We do not care what kind of precipitation it is, any is better than what we have gotten,” said Kirkland. “It is not only for the emergency response side and the critical fire danger, but it helps everyone in general.
Highlighting that the dust and constant winds can even cause health issues, Kirkland added that the effects and damage from a drought can be three-fold, making everyone feel its effects.
Coming out of the weekend, the forecasted weather will revert to the usual elevated fire risk that has become common in the past weeks.
“Whatever we get on Saturday will determine how impactful Tuesday could be,” stated Kirkland.
While “hurricane type winds” are not forecasted, there is a bit of an elevated risk.
When it comes to humidity and grass fires, Kirkland explained that when humidity levels sit between 30% and 40% a grass fire can still occur but it will typically be slow burning due to the fire having to fight against the moisture that is in the air.
When the humidity is in the 5% range there is virtually no moisture a non-contact fire can progress based off of heat rather than the fire contacting its next fuel source.
Any moisture along with humidity will provide a reprieve on all fronts.
“Your responders can kind of breathe for a second since they are not going to run to a grass fire or farmers can breathe for a second because their fields are not going to be blowing everywhere,” explained Kirkland. “Also, there is something about a rainy and a cool day that kind of settles everything down.”
In regard to the public safety side of things, Kirkland added that if there are some winter weather impacts they are going to be shortlived (possibly overnight).
“The following morning we are supposed to have decent sunshine, so if we have winter precipitation overnight the roads will deteriorate the quality of the road for a few hours,” said Kirkland. “By mid morning or midday we will be back to normal.”
Looking at possible storms in the future, Kirkland noted that a lot of times when there is a good storm series that comes through or storm front that comes through it creates a considerable amount of ground moisture and surface moisture. From there, a hot day could build storms on its own cycle and develop its own conditions to continue.
“I don't think anybody would be upset by that at this point,” said Kirkland. “Whatever rainfall we get is going be absolutely treasured.I don't think we're going to get that much rain and I don't think it's going to be that hot the next day, but that could be a trend we see later on in the year when we get into the summer heat days.”