Summary of thunderstorms on May 13-14, 2016

National Weather Service Lubbock Significant Weather Events

May 13-14, 2016: Severe storms and locally heavy rainfall

Looking south from Lubbock at thunderstorms moving across Garza and Lynn Counties around 8 pm

Scattered thunderstorms developed Friday afternoon along a surface trough running southwest to northeast from the western South Plains to the eastern Texas Panhandle. The storms eventually formed two southeastward-moving clusters, one clipping western and southern Lubbock County before moving across much of Lynn and Garza Counties, and the other passing through much of the Rolling Plains. As the storms exited the southern Rolling Plains late in the evening, additional storms formed along a westward moving outflow boundary across portions of Lubbock and Crosby Counties. Finally, a cold front moved into the region early Saturday morning the 14th and this helped intensify the storms already in progress across the central South Plains. The southern cluster produced severe wind gusts up to 65 mph from near Wolfforth to Tahoka and western Garza County. Golfball-sized hail was reported in northeast Childress County and wind damage was reported in Cottle and King Counties from the Rolling Plains storms. The satellite image below shows the two storm clusters in northwest Texas.

Visible satellite image over Texas at 6:45 pm CDT

Other than the severe weather, the main impact from the storms were to bring much-needed rainfall to portions of the area. Lubbock County received quite a bit of rain from the second round of storms early Saturday morning. The Lubbock Airport ended up with 1.88 inches of rain on the 14th, which not only was a record for the date but also doubled the rainfall for the year! The image below shows the some of the rain which fell across western portions of Lubbock late Friday afternoon.

The view looking to the west from near the Texas Tech Campus on the afternon of May 13th. Click on the image to enlarge it. The Image is courtesy of KAMC Lubbock.

The map below shows the radar estimated rainfall across the area from the event. Individual reports from the West Texas Mesonet are plotted on the map.

Map of the total rainfall from May 13th and 14th, 2016. Click on the map to view a larger map.

A radar image from shortly after 9 pm shows what was likely the most intense storm of the day - a supercell thunderstorm between Dickens and Guthrie heading southeast.

Radar image from Lubbock at 9:07 pm on May 13, 2016 — Radar reflectivity from the Lubbock WSR 88D Radar at 9:07 pm CDT on May 13, 2016

A radar image from 3 a.m. shows the early-morning storms that developed across the central South Plains.

Thunderstorms across the central South Plains at 3 am on May 14, 2016 — Radar reflectivity from the Lubbock WSR 88D Radar at 3:01 am CDT on May 14, 2016

Map of the preliminary storm reports from this event. Click on the thunderstorm icons to view the details.