Lubbock Could Be Facing An Avalanche Of Tumbleweeds

Get ready for an avalanche of tumbleweeds.

So many of us grew up watching old Western movies that featured a lone tumbleweed blowing across a hot, dusty, dry landscape. It happened so often in those movies that we never really gave it much thought.

Nessmania

It turns out that tumbleweeds start rollin', rollin', rollin' on the cusp of colder weather. Yup, padnuh, tumbleweeds aren't really a summer thing. They're more of a late fall and winter thing. Most begin drying out and breaking away from their roots in late November and early December, depending on the weather.

So now that you know the intricacies of the Russian thistle, let's just say that I think we're about to be overwhelmed by them.

I have no idea what's going on this year, but tumbleweeds are already all over the place in Lubbock. I took a ton of pictures along the West Loop, where some of these things are already over knee-high, and they haven't even started rolling yet.

Now, I'm not hammering the highway department. I'm just saying that if they're already this numerous alongside the Loop, imagine what's going on in other parts of Lubbock and across the South Plains.

Nessmania

We've had "tumbleweed storms" before, when the wind blew so many tumbleweeds into one place that they piled up as high as rooftops. They can bury fences, block roads, and turn an ordinary windy day into something that looks like a scene from a disaster movie.

I'm thinking 2026 could be another one of those years.

Maybe I'm wrong, but judging by what I'm seeing already, we might want to brace ourselves for a whole lot of rollin', rollin', rollin'.