The tornado fell in Andover, Kansas on Friday night, according to Jane Welch, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Emergency Management Department.
The extent of the damage is not fully known, but images on social media show damaged buildings and overturned cars.
More than a million acres have been burned since January, well above the annual average of about 632,000 acres. New Mexico has been particularly hard hit by five major fires currently burning, and the forecast for the next few days offers no chance of a break.
New Mexico has already reached its annual level of fire activity and it is only April.
“Our season started earlier than in the past,” said Andrew Church, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) in the Albuquerque office.
“Due to climate change and the mega-drought in the western United States, there is simply no more soil moisture,” he said.
Lack of soil moisture, high temperatures and strong winds are the main factors that can lead to the uncontrolled spread of existing fires and new ones.
The threat of critical fires is growing to the extreme today
Red flag warnings have been issued as winds will blow in some of the driest air to date, especially in Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. The risk of fire on Friday will increase to level 3 of 3 “extremely critical” ranges as conditions worsen.
The Tier 3 area covers parts of southeastern Colorado, including the city of Pueblo.
Critical fire conditions (level 2 of 3) are present for the Denver area.
House-to-house evacuations are taking place in Arvada, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, Friday afternoon, as a grass fire is burning in the area, according to a tweet from Arvada police.
The fire is moving east, and signals will be sent to homes in the area, police said.
“Winds in this area are expected to hold at speeds of 30 to 40 mph with gusts of up to 55 mph,” the Storm Forecast Center said.
“We already had three days at the extreme level this year and we were a little worried about this one. So far this year we have had many fires, “said Kyle Mosley, a meteorologist at NWS in Pueblo.
“Any fire that starts anyway will have the ability to spread quickly, and that involves throwing cigarette butts at campfires at downed power lines and things like that, that would be another fear,” Mosley said.
Along with this “extreme” concern, we cannot rule out the expanded “critical” area, which covers parts of five states (NM, CO, TX, OK and KS) and includes Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Lubbock, Amarillo and Midland, Texas. “Said the Center for Storm Forecasting. “The dry, windy conditions in the region will be at the top of the critical threshold, close to extreme critical criteria.”
The current major fires they are monitoring include a fire in the Arizona tunnel, which burned 19,075 acres and the fire is 89% under control; and the Hermits Peak / Calf Canyon fire in New Mexico, which spread to 65,824 acres and was 37% under control.
Forest fires in northeastern New Mexico have damaged or destroyed nearly 300 structures, including 166 homes, authorities said at a news conference Thursday night.
Fires in Calf Canyon and Mount Hermites have destroyed 166 homes, 108 outbuildings and three commercial sites in San Miguel County, according to San Miguel County Sheriff Chris Lopez. Fourteen additional structures were damaged.
It’s hard to believe, but the drought is getting worse
US land monitoring brought more bad news on Thursday. The last week has seen a further increase in drought in the southwestern and southern plains.
“Deterioration was common in the Southwest, with extreme drought (2nd highest denomination) widespread in New Mexico and moderate to severe drought increasing in parts of Arizona and Colorado,” the drought summary said.
New Mexico has twice the area covered by extreme drought (highest level); now makes up over 15% of the state. Drought in the state has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year, with nearly 68% of the state now in extreme to extreme drought.
“It looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Church said. “We’ve seen relative humidity rise behind cold fronts, but with completely depleted soil moisture, the air stays dry with single-digit relative humidity and leads to these fire threats.”
He continued, “we may have to wait a long time for the monsoon rains to begin, hopefully sometime in late June.”
Rain to the east, along with another threat
This is a different kind of threat in the plains on Friday. If rains are needed in the west and southwest, thunderstorms can become strong in plains with severe weather elements such as destructive winds, hail and even tornadoes, with a powerful storm coming from the Rocky Mountains to the east.
The Center for Storm Forecasting (SPC) has increased the threat of severe storms to level 4 out of 5 “moderate” risks in parts of Kansas and Nebraska, including Lincoln and Hastings. “All severe weather hazards will be possible, but destructive gusts of wind could eventually become a more widespread hazard in the south-central to the eastern northeastern northeastern and north-central / northeastern KS,” the SPC said in an updated discussion. .
In total, the serious threat of a storm affects more than 10 million people in the Central Plains, where “many forecast scenarios are expected to develop this afternoon and continue until tonight,” according to the SPC. Although destructive winds are possible in parts of Nebraska and Kansas, several strong tornadoes and very heavy hail (the size of baseball to softball) are also possible on Friday afternoon and night.
The strong storms are expected to continue into the evening and into the night.
A tornado clock has been issued for eastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska until 23:00 CDT. This watch includes Topeka and Wichita in Kansas and Lincoln, Nebraska. The SPC warned that “several intense tornadoes are possible”, along with gusts of up to 70 mph and hail up to 3 inches in diameter.
Meteorologist Ray Sondag of NWS in Tulsa told CNN he expected the worst time to be between 6pm and midnight.
“If we get a dry line setting, which we think we’ll do, these thunderstorms will move to southeastern Oklahoma and could lead to hail the size of a tennis ball, along with a wind of 70 miles per hour and several tornadoes.”
On Saturday, the midwestern cities of St. Louis, Chicago and Indianapolis will be threatened by severe storms.
Chad Myers, Monica Garrett, Hailey Brink, Taylor Ward, Caroline Kuchera, Leslie Perot and Rebecca Rhys contributed to this report.
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