By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
As the recent active weather pattern continues across the region, weather officials say we could see potential damaging winds over the next couple of days.
Meteorologist Dan Holiday said the current storm started in the Baja Mexico region and made its way into the Rockies over night before moving into western Kansas this morning.
“All the ingredients are going to come together for it to go into a phase where its strengthens even more, (and) when it gets into western Kansas, it’s going to explode in intensity, and that’s where we will have very, very strong winds associated with it,” Holiday said.
Holiday said the region could see sustained winds of 25 mph to 35 mph with gusts of 60 mph or greater. With that the National Weather Service has issued a high wind warning that will go into effect at 1 p.m. Wednesday and continue to 1 p.m. Thursday.
“We hear a lot about wind in Kansas, but when it comes to Wednesday, Wednesday into Thursday morning these are going to be winds that will be the level of a severe thunderstorm,” Holiday said.
“You do want to treat this like a severe thunderstorm because power lines could be down, trees could be knocked down very easily and I think a lot of limbs will be down by Thursday morning.”
Holiday said set ups like this are typical during this time of year because the colder weather is still hanging on to the north of us while it is trying to warm up to the south.
“The days are a little bit longer, (and) we’re trying to change from one season to another. When that happens, we have a low pressure area that comes onto the West Coast usually and really gets strong this time of year because there’s just a huge difference in temperature,” Holiday said.
These kinds of storms are typical in the early spring or late winter, Holiday said.
“This one is particularly strong,” Holiday said. “It’s going to cause blizzard conditions in Colorado and then for us its winds as high as 60 miles per hour.”
Holiday said we also see similar storms in October as well.
The low is expected to move out of the region Wednesday night and into Thursday before a high pressure system will move into the region toward the end of the week and along with that comes quieter weather and below-normal temperatures this weekend.
Will the active weather pattern continue? Holiday says it’s too early to tell.
“We typically see storms come out of the southwestern part of the country this time of the year and just sort of continue moving on into the central plains.” Holiday said.
“For us it typically picks up, on average in April, then May is the best month for us and then June becomes more of a strong wind and hail threat.”