AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reports from Wichita Falls, Texas, on the latest updates of the multiday storm outbreaks sweeping across the South with hail, torrential rain, flooding and damaging winds.
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00:01Storms erupted in Texas yesterday and in Oklahoma have continued through this morning.
00:07AccuWeather meteorologist Tony Laubeck joins us now from Wichita Falls
00:11to show us how bad those storms got there yesterday and what the plan is for today.
00:16Boy, some nasty thunderstorms this morning.
00:19Tony, now you're on the backside in the rain area.
00:24Yeah, backside in the cool rain area, if I may stress that here, Bernie.
00:29It's been a steady drizzle, but a very blustery day.
00:32You see one of the water towers here on the south side of town behind me.
00:35Notice the dark spot on the column there.
00:37You can see predominantly the direction the wind is blowing because that is the only part of the water tower there that is wet.
00:42Everything else is dry that is blocked from the rain.
00:45But this is, I would say, probably respite and peace compared to what we saw during the day yesterday out across Central Texas.
00:52We'll get you started right away.
00:54Before we even began our chase, we were watching Florida.
00:58We were watching funnel clouds along a boundary.
01:00This was just to the south of the Vernon, Texas area near Mankins, Texas.
01:05A very snaky funnel right across the highway.
01:07This is not a, I know it looks tornadic, but technically it's not a tornadic funnel.
01:11These are kind of sheer funnels, not necessarily cold air funnels.
01:14But sometimes you get rotating showers that create these and they typically don't touch the ground.
01:19You hear the thunder behind me here already this morning.
01:22But we got later into the day.
01:23Benjamin, Texas here.
01:24One of the greenest storms I have ever seen.
01:28The video just doesn't do justice for just how incredible the sky was as this storm was approaching.
01:34We talk about the green reflecting all the light in a hail storm like this.
01:37That is typically what you get.
01:39And then the hail coming out of this wind driven baseballs in the town of Benjamin.
01:43This storm produced hail up to five inches in diameter, knocking out a lot of folks' windshields, including many chasers that we know, including our own Aaron Rigsby.
01:52A lot of chasers dealing with some broken windshields.
01:54We followed those storms into the Wichita Falls area and they were quite a mess here.
01:58They kind of turned into a bow echo of sorts, not quite the derecho you guys had up in Pennsylvania.
02:03But we saw 60 to 80 mile per hour winds, brief circulations and a lot of flooding, a lot of flash flooding in Wichita Falls.
02:10We saw many roads that were completely blocked, even one that we came across after the fact where the concrete had been dislodged from the road and actually disabled the vehicle there in the intersection.
02:20Crews were cleaning that up.
02:22We saw a little bit of wind damage in the town as well.
02:24A couple of trees knocked down in some of the stronger winds that came through the region last night.
02:28So a very, very busy night that continued all night.
02:31The storms waking us up about six to seven o'clock this morning as that next line came through.
02:36That is pushing off to the east right now.
02:38Bernie mentioned the flash flood potential in Dallas.
02:40He'll give you more details on that.
02:42Our plan for the day right now in terms of tracking storms.
02:45Obviously, this line is going to continue east across northeast Texas.
02:49We're going to set ourselves up on the southern end of the line, likely south of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, probably targeting the Waco area initially.
02:57And basically, we're going to get on the south end of that line where we think we'll see renewed severe thunderstorm development later today.
03:03A damaging wind.
03:04Very large hail once again today.
03:06And perhaps a few tornadoes are on the table for us on the south side of this line here.
03:11Of course, that line itself expected to strengthen as it continues to move across northeast Texas.
03:16That's going to bring a damaging wind threat as well.
03:18So another busy day in TAP for Texas as we've just seen.
03:21It seems like it's been a daily round for almost two weeks here, guys, of severe weather across the Lone Star State.
03:26Yeah, and that flash flooding.
03:27But I'll tell you what, Tony.
03:28I'm really worried about south of Dallas this afternoon.
03:32As you mentioned, that flash flood report.
03:34Stay safe.
03:35We look forward to your reports here this afternoon as the severe weather threat continues.
03:40Day three in Texas.