Conditions deteriorate rapidly as tornado-warned storm barrels through Texas town

AccuWeather

Tony Laubach was reporting live on the AccuWeather Network on April 5 as a tornado-warned storm slammed into Lone Star, Texas.

Transcript

00:00We are looking at some severe weather here. This is a menacing cell, strongly rotating

00:05thunderstorm producing a tornado near Lone Star, Texas from the camera lens of Tony Laubach.

00:09All right, Tony, give us an update on what you're seeing here with that storm.

00:15All right, folks in Lone Star, do not waste time. You're in Lone Star, Texas right now.

00:19You need to take your tornado precautions. You are probably getting rattled pretty good with

00:23some lightning and thunder. We're about to get into the RFD. This might be a quick hit here,

00:26guys. We're going to have to probably think about moving east as we're getting into the

00:29wind and rain. And obviously, with the rain-wrapped circulation, potential tornado that this is,

00:35we certainly don't want to be in an area where we can't see. But you can already see the RFD

00:38kicking around right in front of us here, very strong wind. So we're going to throw it back to

00:42you here, I think, in about two seconds. And we're going to have to get repositioned. Again, Lone

00:47Star, you don't have any time right now. Take absolute shelter. Tornadic cell, potential

00:52rain-wrapped tornado is coming for you right now. All right, Tony, go ahead and reposition.

00:57We'll check in with you coming up. As you saw right there live on the AccuWeather Network,

01:01that rear flank downdraft that Tony was mentioning at the very beginning of his live shot that he

01:06showed you, there was not raining at all. There wasn't even really that much lightning. But now

01:10look at what has happened in less than one minute. Now it's a torrential downpour, lots of frequent

01:16cloud-to-ground lightning going on right there. So that's just how fast conditions will change

01:20as this storm is moving its way into the Lone Star Metro. So take your immediate tornado

01:26precautions right now. Do not wait. This storm is moving about 50 to 60 miles an hour. So you're not

01:32going to be able to see it. You're barely going to be able to hear it. So you need to take your

01:36immediate tornado precautions right now as the storm is moving in, because you're not going to

01:40have time to waste as the storm is moving just as fast as it is. But what we're tracking here on

01:45radars, we have that one confirmed tornado warning there that Tony is on there for the Lone

01:50Star Metro. And this storm is moving up to the north and to the northeast about 50, 60 miles an

01:55hour, pushing its way into Cass County there in Texas. That's not the only storm that we are

01:59tracking here. As you look at radar, we have storms. I was talking about the storms in southeast

02:03Oklahoma. Those are now pushing their way into southwest Arkansas. So if you're in southwest

02:08Arkansas, you need to watch out here for these storms moving in from the west. But I also

02:12mentioned earlier that another area of concern here is going to be the storms that are across

02:17central and northern parts of Arkansas. And as you look at the radar loop here over the last hour,

02:22you can see it about 30 minutes ago, we just had a few isolated severe thunderstorms, but these

02:27storms have ramped up so quickly that now we have multiple tornado warnings here across parts of

02:33northern Arkansas. So as we look at them closer, we have a tornado warning in effect for Randolph

02:38County in Arkansas. We have a tornado warning here in effect for Stone County, Arkansas,

02:42and also a tornado warning in effect right now for Faulkner County there in Arkansas. And one

02:48thing I do want to point out is as you look at these warning boxes, you can see that they are

02:52very long, which means that these storms are moving very fast. So you need to take your immediate

02:57tornado precautions here as these storms are moving in. But we're going to take a closer look

03:01here at that storm in Lone Star that Tony was talking about. And this is a very developing,

03:05dangerous situation here for us, because as we take a look at the live radar here, you can see

03:10that over the past couple of radar scans, that hook feature that we normally look for here for

03:15tornadic supercells, it has maintained its intensity and strength here over at least the

03:20past hour you can see right there. And it is still showing a very impressive radar signature here

03:26for velocity in the lowest levels of the atmosphere. You can see that right there.

03:30It looks like it peaked a couple of radar scans ago. What ends up happening is that as that rear

03:34flank down draft starts to work its way and cycle around the actual rotation, in some cases,

03:41it can end up choking off just temporarily that rotation. But these storms go through cycles.

03:46They cycle up, they cycle down with intensity and in rotation. And it looks like we're on a

03:51downward trend right now as far as the overall rotation. But this storm is definitely going to

03:55cycle its way back up. And as you can see right there on Tony's live shot, flooding, torrential

04:00rainfall and frequent cloud to ground lightning. So what we're going to be looking at for right now

04:04is going to be some visual cues here on the progression of this storm to include power

04:10flashes there in Tony's shot to see if we have visual confirmation of this tornado being in

04:15contact with the ground here going forward.

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