Drenching storms lead to flooding and tornado threats in Texas

AccuWeather

Powerful storms led to a variety of severe impacts in eastern Texas on the evening of May 16, including dangerous floods, hail and possible tornadoes.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 After a break from the stormy weather,

00:03 drenching thunderstorms are back in the forecast

00:06 once again into Texas.

00:07 Some of these storms are severe with hail,

00:08 damaging winds, and we're also tracking

00:10 isolated tornado threats in this area.

00:13 We are gonna be heading through the night here

00:15 with some dangerous storms in many areas.

00:18 Thanks so much for joining us here on AccuWeather Ahead.

00:24 I'm Jeff Cornish, and we are tracking a tornado threat now

00:28 moving into the western part of the Houston metro.

00:30 More of western and northwestern Harris County

00:32 has been added to a new tornado warning.

00:34 About 660,000 people are under a tornado threat right now,

00:38 and that's tied to that one specific warning.

00:41 Now, there is a much larger watch

00:43 that runs all the way into southwest

00:44 and south-central parts of Louisiana,

00:47 in addition to southeast Texas.

00:48 There's a tornado watch into the middle

00:50 and latter part of the evening.

00:51 Severe thunderstorm watch farther west

00:53 into the Permian Basin with some pretty nasty hailstorms.

00:57 We've had up to three-inch diameter hail,

00:59 flash flooding in Hobbs, New Mexico,

01:01 leading to water rescues,

01:03 or at least vehicles stranded in water,

01:05 according to reports as well.

01:06 And the storms are gonna be moving east here

01:08 through the evening and tonight into tomorrow.

01:10 Our top story is the severe weather,

01:12 and Scurry County, Texas is one spot

01:14 where we've been seeing some of that hail out there,

01:16 and it is bouncing around.

01:18 Look at those hailstones bouncing upon impact.

01:22 That's some pretty nasty stuff,

01:23 looking bigger than gumballs for sure,

01:26 with those hailstones coming down.

01:28 And we can take you now to Houston,

01:29 and the area of Houston, Texas

01:31 is facing a severe weather risk here,

01:34 where we are gonna be facing

01:35 some strong and severe thunderstorms

01:38 that will bring the risk for damaging winds

01:40 and also a possible tornado as well.

01:43 Now, it's not yet into the city of Houston,

01:45 but still about 660,000 people are under tornado warnings

01:48 in the northwestern part of Harris County.

01:51 So let's zoom in here and give you the view

01:54 of what's happening on radar.

01:55 We can switch over to the high-res radar data

01:57 out of Houston, and here looking from the radar site,

02:01 which is down near League City,

02:03 looking from southeast to northwest,

02:05 we can see that there is a pretty significant

02:08 little notch here with this storm.

02:10 I say notch, you can see where there's kind of a cut in

02:13 and then a bulge out, and that is a response

02:16 to the overall rotation within this storm,

02:18 and there's very strong inbound wind.

02:21 I say inbound, where part of the storm

02:23 is moving closer to the radar site,

02:24 and then on the north side up near Cyprus,

02:26 we have outbound wind.

02:27 So there is very clearly some rotation in this area

02:30 of west-central Harris County, Texas,

02:33 and again, fairly strong rotation

02:36 where there could be a tornado near

02:37 or just southwest of Cyprus.

02:39 As we look at the velocity scan,

02:41 I'm gonna zoom in a little bit tighter once again

02:43 so we can assess how strong the wind is,

02:45 101 mile per hour inbound wind

02:47 versus at least a couple of pixels

02:50 where we have outbound wind around 64 miles per hour.

02:52 So there is potentially a contrast there

02:55 between inbound and outbound

02:57 of up to 165 mile per hour winds in conflicted directions.

03:01 So that is certainly strong rotation,

03:04 and we are dealing with the risk here

03:05 for a possible tornado.

03:07 So as we take a look at this area of strengthening rotation,

03:10 moving into the Houston metro,

03:12 we can kind of trace this right through this area here,

03:15 and it is on a trajectory to move right into the core

03:17 of the metro area, so we're very concerned about that.

03:20 The sheer track here shows that we've been painting a stripe

03:23 of some fairly strong rotation

03:25 moving right into the Houston metro,

03:27 and again, it's radar indicated.

03:28 We don't have ground confirmation of this at this point,

03:32 but again, there is that risk of a tornado

03:34 into Harris County near or just south of Cyprus right now.

03:37 So if you're between Jersey Village,

03:40 north of Katy, Texas, and Cyprus, take shelter.

03:43 You need to get into a shelter

03:44 if you're in this part of northwestern Harris County

03:46 outside of the beltway there

03:48 where we do have the risk of a tornado

03:49 with strong rotation moving in that direction right now.

03:53 Elsewhere, we're gonna put the puzzle back together,

03:56 all the radar sites together here across the nation,

03:58 and you can see that there is some very heavy,

04:00 repetitive rain to the north.

04:02 Another big hazard here is running from Bryan, Texas,

04:06 all the way into areas a little bit north of the area.

04:10 There's Bryan right now.

04:11 You can see that high water.

04:12 Look at that flash flooding.

04:13 This is a problem.

04:14 We do not advise driving through anything like that.

04:17 If there's that much water with waves and movement,

04:20 you don't know if that road surface is there and intact.

04:23 So that's a big problem there in Bryan, Texas.

04:25 And Bryan is on the west side of this map here.

04:28 We just kind of started the hour right over Bryan.

04:30 And the rain's not over there yet.

04:31 Although you're getting a break,

04:32 there will be some more later tonight.

04:34 But the flooding rain is also a concern from Bryan

04:37 all the way east into Bonweir

04:39 and then into Louisiana, into Leesville and Oakdale

04:41 where the flash flood warnings do continue.

04:44 Off to the west, we have this second cluster

04:46 of thunderstorms.

04:47 Some of this has involved some large hail.

04:49 We have had up to three inch diameter hail

04:51 with this storm moving through Erie on the county

04:54 of Texas right now.

04:56 And then heading north and west right

04:57 into the highly populated Midland Odessa area.

05:00 We have a couple of reports here of hail.

05:02 There's golf ball sized hail at the university

05:04 in Grandview in Odessa.

05:06 And then just barely west of there,

05:07 quarter sized hail a little earlier on.

05:09 That was a 539.

05:10 And then 11 minutes later,

05:11 we had our first golf ball sized hail report

05:14 with that storm.

05:15 But there's the three inch diameter hail report

05:17 in Texan that I mentioned earlier there

05:19 with the cell getting closer to the big country

05:21 of Texas there near San Angelo.

05:24 So a lot of different hazards there out there

05:25 and we have strong and severe storms also into Lubbock now

05:29 as the cell is moving in with some strong wind into Lubbock.

05:33 So you're under a severe thunderstorm warning

05:34 to Lubbock County.

05:35 That one looks a little bit less aggressive at the moment,

05:37 but still some strong winds are accompanying it.

05:40 So again, the biggest threat overall is this tornado threat

05:43 moving into Harris County, Cypress, Jersey Village.

05:45 There is rotation.

05:46 And again, I just wanna hammer this home one more time

05:49 that there is strong rotation in this area

05:52 where we need to take shelter.

05:53 If you're in Western and Northwestern Harris County,

05:55 there is a tornado threat moving through the area

05:57 between Cypress and South of Cypress into Jersey Village.

06:00 A big chunk of Western Harris County,

06:02 tornado threat for you moving into more of the metro area.

06:05 Still about 600,000 people

06:07 under a tornado threat right now.

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