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.
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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.