Severe storms sweep through Texas, bringing hail and possible tornadoes

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Guy Pearson provides an update on the severe storms blasting through Texas, bringing hail and the potential for tornadoes. The storms will continue to move across the Gulf Coast.

Transcript

00:00Joining me right now is severe weather expert Guy Pearson.

00:03And, you know, Guy, it's been a busy morning across central Texas here.

00:07It's mostly been a heavy rain, but again, as we take you into the radar here,

00:13you can see some lines of thunderstorms and certainly plenty of lightning.

00:20Yes, there's all kinds of lightning this morning with these storms.

00:25You know, part of that lightning is, you know, there's enough of an updraft

00:28that you actually have some collision of particles up in the atmosphere to help induce that charge.

00:34So we have had some hail reports this morning,

00:37as well as, you know, some rotation areas of potential tornadoes here and there.

00:43All right. You know, when you take a look at the water vapor loop Guy here,

00:47you can kind of see the different sections of this storm.

00:51A lot of moisture here for Texas from Dallas toward Oklahoma City.

00:55While you certainly can't rule out severe weather, it looks like it's mostly rain,

00:59but it's that drier air south of Dallas towards San Antonio and Austin.

01:04That seems to be the area to watch, at least for the majority of the severe weather,

01:09including the tornado threat.

01:13Yep, certainly that drier air to the south, Bernie, that you were mentioning,

01:16as it moves towards the east and northeast later today,

01:19across central Texas and towards east Texas, that's going to be our main focus for severe.

01:25If you're talking as far north as the metroplex area, there will be, you know,

01:29some scattered, some severe weather around,

01:32but certainly not as numerous as across central Texas later today.

01:36When you look at the future radar, there's the rain area, Oklahoma City.

01:40Now, I will say around Dallas, that looks a little concerning, those individual cells,

01:45but then we start talking about the clusters of thunderstorms from about Waco

01:50all the way toward, ooh, just south of Shreveport.

01:55Yep, those individual cells that we're talking about, you know, the metroplex area there,

02:00certainly those individual cells would be the some aspect of, you know,

02:04potential severe weather around.

02:06It's that cluster in that area farther south where you have the dynamics,

02:10you've got a little bit better moisture and a little bit better focus

02:12for those, all the different severe weather ingredients to come together there.

02:17The other concern we have, and I've been mentioning this all morning, Guy,

02:21is it's very concerning what happens in Louisiana late today and tonight.

02:29Yep, you know, as that storm complex from central Texas moves east into Louisiana tonight,

02:36you know, we talked about the two upper level lows that we had,

02:38and they weren't really moving anywhere.

02:40Well, we get this complex that develops later today,

02:43and then it just sort of stalls out along the boundary.

02:46There's still enough push, you know, with the piece of rotating energy over the southwest

02:51that it's continuing with enough forcing to continue that thunderstorm development

02:56and redevelopment over the same areas,

02:58and certainly flash flooding is going to be a risk tonight across Louisiana.

03:03Yep.

03:03For it looks like even Houston late tonight into tomorrow morning,

03:06how many times have you seen thunderstorms, Guy, in your career

03:11that explode along the Gulf Coast during the overnight hours?

03:15It's been numerous.

03:19We'll leave it at that.

03:21But this is the perfect setup for a flash flooding heavy rain event.

03:25You have that stalled boundary.

03:26You have enough, like I said, enough forcing to actually then get the storms

03:31to continue to redevelop and move over the same areas,

03:33and that's what's going to lead to potentially localized higher rain amounts

03:38across an area that would lead to flash flooding in these areas.

03:42You have a good feel for the amount of tornadoes today.

03:45Are we talking, I've been thinking a few to several in that moderate area,

03:50certainly wind and hail and flash flooding are the main threats.

03:53What's your thought on the tornado threat today?

03:55Yeah, specifically on the tornado threat, there will probably be a few around.

04:01I think that's probably going to be about it.

04:04You know, with some of the trends that we've seen, you know,

04:06it's going to be sort of a quick spin-up.

04:08It's not going to be anything that's, you know, going to traverse a long ways.

04:12It's going to be a quick spin-up, not last very long.

04:15So you do want to pay attention if you live in the moderate risk area here.

04:18You do want to pay attention through the afternoon hours

04:20as there will be some severe weather around.

04:23AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson

04:25joining us from our Severe Weather Center in Wichita, Kansas.

04:29Great insight as always, Guy.

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