NWS Amarillo

While showers are possible across the Eastern Panhandle on Tuesday, the western areas will experience very hot and dry conditions. These dry conditions, combined with sufficient wind, raise concern for critical fire weather conditions. An incoming cold front will exacerbate these concerns, causing winds to shift from west to north during the afternoon, with gusts potentially reaching 25 to 30 mph. Consequently, a Fire Weather Watch is in effect starting at noon on Tuesday.

Many factors are up in the air Thursday and Friday, but there will potentially be quite the difference in weather between the western and eastern Panhandles. Here's a rundown of current expectations.

On top of breezy southwest winds, much of the Panhandles will have a chance to break record highs on Tuesday. This combo could create elevated fire weather conditions for the western half of the Panhandles.

Tuesday morning we'll have a rare Blood Moon Total Lunar Eclipse. The Blood Moon occurs during the totality phase of the eclipse. There is some concerns for cloud cover to at least have some, if not total impact of the viewing. Areas to the west have the best chance for minimal viewing impacts, but still not a full guarantee.

Now that February is wrapped up, we can officially say we just had our warmest February on record for all of our climate sites. We also had our warmest winter (1 Dec - 28 Feb) on record. Add Nov into the mix, and we had our warmest Nov-Feb on record as well.