High Plains Drifter

A Dumas 287 Bottleneck! After I dug my Jeep out from the Days Inn parking lot, I decided to survey Hwy 287 in and just outside of town, to see what I would be up against tomorrow morning.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Hwy 287 was in halfway decent shape just outside of town to the north… as I drove about 3 miles north of town before I turned around.  Before exiting town, however, I took a couple of journalistic-style photos of huge bottleneck of semis on the south-bound lane of Hwy 287 coming into Dumas from the north.  Hwy 287 in the city limits is a joke right now.  The road is like 2 to 4 inches of very bumpy ice from all the compacted snow.  The plows never really had a chance at 287 in town because there was so much traffic compacting during the storm.  Outside of town in the open areas, the snow either blow off the road during the storm, or it piled up without too much compacting from traffic that plowing was easier.  I feel pretty confident I’ll get back to Dodge City by early afternoon, as I plan to leave very early before sunrise.  I’m allowing myself a solid 6-7 hours travel time tomorrow for what is usually a 3-hour drive from Dumas to Dodge City.  Below is an image of the bottleneck as semis come into the Dumas 287 Ice Rink from the north:

The Great Dumas Dig-out Underway! I got some exercise in this morning walking around the south part of Dumas photographing some of the snow scenes here. Pretty impressive stuff with drifts of 4-5 feet common. There were even a few 6-footers in between houses in some of the neighborhoods I walked through. My Jeep is semi-buried in the front, so I’ll spend this afternoon digging that out.  I’m glad I packed the shovel.  I am staying here in Dumas one more night and leaving first thing in the morning to head back to Dodge.  My shovel has come in handy already, as a Colorado resident in a Jeep pulling a small trailer with a dirt bike was stuck in the parking lot trying to leave.  Kind of ironic if you ask me.  His 4WD didn’t kick in, so he is just spinning his back tires.  I got a few pictures of that.  Anyway, I’ll post another big album of “day after” images later on today.

Below is an album of images shot on January 28, 2010 during the winter storm that produced 13.5″ of snow during the daytime and evening hours in Dumas, TX.  All images were shot around the hotel area on the south side of town, walking around on foot during the snowfall.  It was a challenge to keep the camera dry and to stay warm during the shoot times, but I think I came away with a good series of images that portray what it was like in Dumas during this awesome snowstorm.  Near-blizzard conditions were observed during the midday and afternoon hours as wind gusts occasionally reached 35 mph.  At the height of the storm, when the snowfall rate was around 2″ per hour, the combined rate of snowfall and blowing snow with the wind reduced visibility to 75 to 100 yards at times!

Snow ended.  13.5″ storm total snowfall in Dumas. Snow came to an end late this evening.  Since it was still snowing at the time of the 12″ snow depth observation at 7:00pm, another 1.5″ or so accumulated between then and midnight, therefore I am calling it 13.5″.  There is already settling/compacting going on and the mean snow depth is around 12″ walking around the hotel grounds at midnight.  I will be staying another night in Dumas, since there is really no rush to leave as I am not due in to work until Saturday afternoon, so I will spend Friday in Dumas and probably leave here early Saturday morning.  This has been a very fun event to cover (the snow aspect of it).  The forecast worked out very well, and the final storm total snowfall fell right in the middle of the 12-15″ forecast I had for here.

Dumas, TX at a stand-still with average snow depth of 12″ as of 7:00pm. I spent the better part of the last couple hours photographing on foot.  By now, there is very little traffic, and some of the vehicles traveling down Hwy 287 are towing another vehicle!  The biggie drift in front of the hotel is a solid 5 feet now.  I have a couple decent images of it, including one with the metal yard stick as a reference.  This drift dwarfs the yard stick.  Since the forecast verified here, the plan now is to photograph the “digging out” process around town tomorrow and stay a third night here… and by Saturday morning, the hope is that Hwy 287 will be cleared enough for safe travel back to Dodge City.

Radar shows Dumas is still in a moderate-heavy snow band just north of the mid-level circulation that can be seen on radar.  Later this evening after I eat something and wind down a little bit, I’ll get more images uploaded.

These images were shot early this afternoon from around the hotel I’m staying at in Dumas.  Estimated new snowfall for this storm is 8″, but I’ll go out and measure again at about 3pm or so.

6″ snowfall in Dumas so far as of 12:30pm CST. I went out and measured all around the hotel grounds and came up with around 6″ average depth.  There are a lot of 12 to 18″ drifts as well as a few bare spots (mainly on pavement areas).  We should stay in the 1-2″ per hour rate for another couple hours before some drier mid level air and not-so-strong upward vertical motion approaches.

This image is taken from the drive entrance into my hotel looking north into town on the main artery Hwy 287.  It could be mistaken for being out in the open!  That semi truck was no more than 100 yards away.  10:55am CST

I took this shot from inside my hotel room in the south part of Dumas, TX looking out toward Highway 287.  Time of image 8:30am CST:

Winter precipitation underway! The precipitation began as sleet in Dumas at about 6:45am or so.  There were a few flakes mixed in through about 7:15 or so, and by 7:30am more flakes were mixed in and it was about half sleet/half snow.  By 8 or 8:30am, it should be all snow here, with heavy snow most of the day and northeast winds 15 to 25 mph with higher gusts in the 30-40mph range this afternoon!