Another round of powerful storms brought rain, high winds and large hail to Texas on Tuesday, causing hundreds of thousands to lose power and ground stops to be put in place at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field Airport.
Just as the region was recovering from deadly tornadoes over the weekend, sirens rang out early on Tuesday morning, as the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for areas east of Dallas that was set to expire at 8:15 a.m. local time.
“Take cover now!” said a message from the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. The storms came with damaging winds, with gusts as high as 70 miles per hour, and hail the size of golf balls, the Weather Service said on social media.
More than 650,000 customers were without power in Texas as of 7 a.m. local time, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utilities data.
The likelihood of severe weather throughout the day is greater for Central Texas, with forecasts of moderate risk stretching over a melon-shaped area, including Abilene, Waco, Austin and Midland.
Marc Chenard, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said that people in the Southern Plains, particularly in Texas, would likely continue to face harsh conditions that often develop during the final weeks of spring, he said. Still, “having severe weather this time of year is not anomalous,” he said.
The forecast comes on the heels of severe weather that stretched across much of the country over the holiday weekend. Storms and tornadoes killed at least 23 people from Texas to Virginia and left hundreds of thousands without power; heavy rain and damaging winds snarled holiday travel plans from the Midwest to the East Coast.
Beyond Texas, Kentucky is expected to see a reprieve over the coming days, as the National Guard and forestry workers continue to clear downed trees and dangerous debris from powerful storms that killed four people over the weekend. The National Weather Service in Louisville said that mostly dry weather was expected over the coming days, with no rain in the forecast until the weekend.
Severe storms are possible across Central Oklahoma on Tuesday, beginning early in the morning and shifting south through the afternoon, the service said. In Southern Oklahoma, raging storms with large hail had become less intense by early Tuesday morning. Still, hail the size of golf balls and damaging winds up to 60 m.p.h. were possible later in the day. Two people were killed north of Tulsa over the weekend, as severe storms swept in.
After a wet, windy and disruptive Memorial Day in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, sunny, summerlike conditions are expected to return by Tuesday morning with highs in the low-to-mid 80s.
There were more than 1,000 flight delays and more than 200 cancellations on Tuesday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website. On Friday, more than 2.9 million people were screened at U.S. airports, the Transportation Security Administration said — a single-day record.
Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting.
