The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (March 2018) |
A dry line (also called a dew point line, or Marfa front, after Marfa, Texas)[1] is a line across a continent that separates moist air and dry air. One of the most prominent examples of such a separation occurs in central North America, especially Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, where the moist air from the Gulf of Mexico meets dry air from the desert south-western states. The dry line is an important factor in severe weather frequency in the Great Plains of North America. It typically lies north-south across the High Plains states in the warm sector of an extratropical cyclone and stretches into the Canadian Prairies during the spring and early summer.[citation needed] The dry line is also important for severe convective storms in other regions of the world, such as northern India and Southern Africa.[2] In general, thunderstorms and other forms of severe weather occur on the moist side of the dryline.