Early Thursday morning, a strong cold front made its way through the Brazos Valley. The front brought extremely gusty winds, rain, colder temperatures, and even some dust. Here in Texas, we are used to cold fronts passing through. What we aren’t used to is winds gusting upwards of 40 mph! Why was it so windy?

A front is defined as a boundary that separates two different air masses. Normally, it is the boundary that separates high and low pressure. This front in particular was a strong one, bringing with it cold arctic air from Canada. It moved in pretty fast, and even interacted with the dry line that sits out in west Texas. We saw temperatures in the 80s before the front got here, which was due to high pressure being in control of our weather. The cold front brought along with it extremely colder air from the north, causing a tighter pressure gradient. The drastic difference in air pressure, along with the interaction of the cold front with the dry line, caused the extremely high winds we saw here in the Brazos Valley.

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