An event took place in Southeast Texas between the evening of March 15 and the early morning of the 16th that is only now coming to light. As is often the calling card of early spring, some mighty thunderstorms marched their way across the country, dropping tornadoes, drenching rains, and hail of every size in their wake.
The nature of the North-South alignment of the Rockies combined with the warmer, wetter air masses laying across Texas and the Great Plains states (thanks to the Gulf of Mexico) is combustible. That enormous mountain range lets cool, dry air slip over unimpeded into the Plains, and it’s that temperature differential when it runs into that Gulf moisture that is the genesis of those spectacular systems.
The phenomenon even has a name: The Texas Dry Line. You can see it in action clearly on satellite with a good explanation from…
