Severe storms bring a risk for tornadoes and hail to Texas on Cinco de Mayo

AccuWeather

Storm chaser Tony Laubach reports live from Odessa, Texas, as severe storms fire up on May 5.

Transcript

00:00Multi-day severe weather and flash flood threat continues here as we head into tonight across the southern U.S.

00:05Our live coverage begins right now with Tony Laubach.

00:07He joins us live right now near Midland and Odessa in Texas.

00:12Tony, give us the latest.

00:16Well, Damian, we're currently tracking a severe storm that's developed over the last hour.

00:20We're watching the storm.

00:21It's just on the northwest side of the Odessa area,

00:25so the outer kind of beltway loop that it's sitting kind of just on the northwest side of downtown.

00:30Odessa, we've been watching this storm pretty much for the last 45 minutes as it has intensified and gone severe,

00:35currently severe worn for quarter-sized hail and 60-mile-per-hour winds.

00:40We'll show you the radar here.

00:41I want to walk you through a couple of things that we're watching here.

00:43And, Damian, if you wouldn't mind running this into motion, a couple of features I want to point out.

00:47It might be tough to see on this, and forgive me if it is,

00:50but there is a faint little line there that has been kind of pressing in from south.

00:54That is an outflow boundary from the early morning and afternoon convection

00:58and showers that have been north of this area.

01:01That is kind of the firing line for these storms.

01:04This boundary is slowly moving south.

01:06So what I'm expecting to have happen at some point here is once that boundary stalls out,

01:11that's going to be the area where you're going to be most concerned with tornadic development.

01:14Unfortunately, that's going to put that very, very close to the Midland-Odessa area

01:18and places right along the interstate.

01:20So a fairly heavily populated area for folks here in the southwest Texas area.

01:25The good news for this initial storm that we're currently tracking,

01:27we do believe that this outflow boundary has pushed just to the south of the main area of this storm,

01:34meaning this storm has likely been undercut.

01:36So I think for the time being, this particular cell has lower tornado chances,

01:40but we certainly are not going to rule anything out with the various parameters in play in this region.

01:45But I think anything north of that faint little line, anything north basically of the interstate,

01:50you get out toward Kermit, north of there, I think is primarily going to be a hail threat.

01:55I think it's going to be along and south of that line that we are going to be watching the potential for tornadoes,

02:00maybe a significant tornado if that storm stays rooted on that particular line.

02:04So that is the area we are currently watching right now.

02:08Again, we're going to kind of focus our efforts here on this particular storm.

02:11There's another storm off to the northwest across the border into New Mexico.

02:14So several areas in this immediate vicinity, certainly in the threat forest of your weather,

02:20very large hail, which has pretty much been a common theme for the last several days.

02:24That is going to continue to probably be the primary threat in the near term.

02:27And this is only going to be the first round of storms.

02:30Unfortunately, we expect another round of storms to develop later this evening.

02:34That round of storm bears watching for the potential for damaging winds, widespread damaging winds and hail.

02:39Well, those storms are likely to push east overnight.

02:43And then as we get into tomorrow morning and eventually tomorrow afternoon,

02:47those are going to be a player in the severe weather threat all the way across the state and east Texas, Damien.

02:52So expecting the next 24 hours to be very, very busy here in the Lone Star State.

02:56All right.

02:57AccuWeather meteorologist, storm chaser, and 90s movie aficionado, Tony Laubach.

03:01Thank you so much for that update.

03:02We'll check in with you here coming up.

03:04So overall, what Tony was talking about is that these storms here across West Texas,

03:09we're going to take a live look here at Sherman Denison.

03:11This is Denison, Texas, actually.

03:13And you can see, well, of course, widespread traffic construction going on right now.

03:17That's just how it is in Texas.

03:18But we're also watching out, as you can see, some wet roads out there.

03:21We'll be watching out for some showers.

03:23But the areas that Tony was talking about here north of the I-20 corridor for Midland and Odessa.

03:27So for Midland County, Hector County, and Andrews County, we are watching that boundary

03:31because depending on the orientation of these storms, how they develop along that boundary,

03:36that's what could really ramp up the low-level rotation for these particular storms.

03:41And it's that low-level rotation that is really going to increase the overall tornado threat

03:45that we will be tracking here as we head throughout this evening and as we head throughout tonight.

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