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~~~~~~~~~ may 1978 Canyon, Texas, and Palo Duro Canyon Flood the Red River, Hardeman County received grapefruit-sized hail. In late May a severe storm system formed over the South Plains and Texas Panhandle. On May 21 intense rains brought street flooding to Amarillo. On May 25 a tornado was sighted south of Lubbock, and wind gusts of sixty mph hit west of Canyon. Rainfall During the afternoon of May 26, the conditions at all levels of the atmosphere combined to form large thunderstorms and a squall line in the western Texas Panhandle. The jet stream was located across Mexico and Southwest Texas. In the middle levels of the atmosphere, the 200 millibar analysis showed evidence of divergence in the left exit region of the jet stream. At the low levels , a strong southeasterly flow approached the region almost perpendicularly to the jet stream flow. A surface low-pressure system formed in southeastern New Mexico, and storms began developing around noon in the Tucumcari area. By 3 p.m. the storms were hovering between Tucumcari and Dalhart. The northern end of the storms then moved north and east, while the southern storms moved slowly to the southeast. The strongest ones appeared in the northeast quadrant of the surface low. Two storm cells formed ahead of a squall line. Without competition from a line of storms for moisture, these two cells evolved into enormous cell storms. The easternmost of these bore down on Canyon around 7 p.m. outside of canyon, Texas, two small creeks join to form the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, which has helped to carve the spectacular Palo Duro Canyon. As the town of Canyon grew, housing developments sprang up along the two creeks, the Palo Duro and the Tierra Blanca. South of Amarillo, other housing developments, such as the Palo Duro Club, Timber Creek, Tanglewood , and Palisades, were constructed along the Prairie Dog Town Fork. Living so close to these streams, even in the usually dry Texas Panhandle, brought risk. In both 1951 and 1968 floods hinted at the potential of the creeks to overflow near Canyon. Following the 1968 flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a flood plain study in 1971 that concluded, “Only a few structures in the flood plains of Palo Duro and Tierra Blanca Creeks have been damaged by floods in the past; however, residential development has begun in the flood plains that have been inundated in the past.” The May 1978 flash flood confirmed the engineers’ and hydrologists’ concerns. Intense storms produced surges that ripped through the edge of Canyon and then into Palo Duro Canyon. Precedent At start of 1978, the Canyon area was dry. Going into March, Randall County had received only 1.1 inches of rainfall since September 1977, prompting area farmers to apply for drought assistance. In April, stormy spring weather brought some precipitation but also severe weather. Downstream from A4481.indb 205 A4481.indb 205 1/18/08 1:52:05 PM 1/18/08 1:52:05 PM ~~~ may 1978 206 The main concern for this set of storms was tornadic activity. At 6:56 p.m. a tornado was sighted southwest of Canyon. At 7:24 p.m. 90-mph winds were clocked two miles southwest of Canyon. At 7:38 p.m. a funnel cloud was spotted east of Canyon. Near Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge a motorist reported that golf-ball-size hail battered his car and broke its windshield. The system prompted the National Weather Service to issue flash flood warnings for Donley, Collingsworth, Hall, Briscoe , and Childress counties as it moved east and north. Near the town of Dawn, the storms dropped six inches of rainfall between 5:15 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Three inches had fallen there the day before. The heaviest rains began in the Hereford area and moved toward Canyon. Nearly ten inches reportedly fell in the Milo Center and Ford community areas in northern Deaf Smith County. As the storms slowed, intense rains poured down near Canyon between 6:30 and 8 p.m. Two of the highest totals were 8 inches northwest of Hereford and 10 inches west and southwest of Canyon, just downstream of Buffalo Lake. The precipitation northwest of Hereford was fully caught by the totally dry Buffalo Lake, which had been drained five years earlier after a fish kill. The runoff filled the lake with 3,000 acre-feet of water, which was twice...

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