National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Heat the Southwest; Fire Weather in the Central U.S.; Kona Low Impacting Hawaii

A rare March heat wave is ongoing with much above-normal temperatures over the Southwest U.S. through this weekend. Periods of critical fire weather will persist from the central Rockies to the central and southern Plains through the weekend as gusty winds and low relative humidity continue. A Kona low will continue to bring several rounds of moderate to heavy rainfall to Hawaii through Sunday. Read More >

The radar animation below is from the October 24, 2000, severe weather event. It produced tornadic thunderstorms and flash flooding across the central Permian Basin. The sequence of images were taken approximately 5 minutes apart, from 6:00 PM CDT to 10:04 PM CDT.

The many hook shaped echoes that occurred frequently with this event; prompted the issuance of numerous severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings that evening. This severe weather event affected the most populated regions of the Permian Basin; the cities of Odessa and Midland. Very heavy rains from those thunderstorms produced flash flooding too.