APRIL 27, 2015
DALLAS, TEXAS
Severe weather swept through northern Texas Sunday night.
The National Weather Service says it’s received numerous
reports of tornadoes that struck. There was also massive hail.
One driver near Stephenville, Texas was caught in a hail
storm with five to six inch hailstones. It wasn’t long before the softball
sized stones completely destroyed the windshield.
The weather service’s Forth Worth office said it had
received reports of twisters in rural Johnson and Hill counties but hadn’t yet
confirmed them.
Some homes and other buildings were flattened in the
aftermath of the storm Sunday while other structures had their roofs torn away
or were damaged by falling trees. There were no accounts of injuries.
Hail described as the size of ping pong balls, and larger,
showered the area.
National Weather Service forecaster Lamont Bain said Monday
that severe weather reached Comanche, Erath, Somervell, Bosque, Hill and
Johnson counties. He said Glen Rose received more than 4 inches of rain.
Part of the Waxahachie police headquarters south of Dallas flooded
as water several inches deep rushed into the building.
Anita Foster, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said
in a statement Monday that her agency is assessing the damage and providing
assistance to families.
“Overnight, Red Cross teams provided cots and blankets for
the shelter set up in Maypearl, and stood by for shelter needs in Johnson, Hood
and Erath counties,” she said. “The event is still unfolding with flash
flooding throughout the area.”
More severe weather was forecast for North and East Texas
through Monday, with forecasts calling for winds up to 70 mph, hail and the
possibility of tornadoes.
Other parts of Texas, meanwhile, were lashed by heavy rains.
The weather service on Monday issued a flash-flood watch for parts of the
Panhandle. Amarillo had received up to 2 inches of rain as of Monday morning,
and moderate to heavy rainfall was forecast through the day.
Strong thunderstorms in the Houston area Monday downed trees
and damaged homes and buildings.
The Texas Department of Transportation reported heavy rains
have led to standing water on roads in Alto and other parts of East Texas, and
in Hardeman County, northwest of Wichita Falls near the Panhandle.
//---------------------------//
Severe storms ramped up in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex
Sunday night and into Monday morning, spawning a large tornado that caused
damage and power outages.
As of Monday evening, ten twisters have been confirmed by
the National Weather Service. Eight were rated EF0, while one near Lake Brownwood
was an EF1, as was one near Kenner, Louisiana, the lowest levels on the
Enhanced Fujita Scale.
The entire town of Rio Vista, Texas, was without power Monday morning following the severe
storm, according to NBC DFW. Some of the damage has yet to be assessed, as
crews wanted to wait until sunrise to view the damaged areas, the report added.
Schools in Rio Vista, Maypearl and Italy will be delayed by 2 hours Monday
morning.
"A surface low developed just west of the Texas
panhandle, pulling warm, moist air into much of central and eastern Texas. To
the west, very dry air flowed into western Texas," said weather.com
meteorologist Chrissy
Warrilow. "Along this boundary, called a dry line, severe
thunderstorms developed that produced large hail and tornadoes from the Abilene
area east into the western and southern regions of the Dallas-Fort Worth
Metroplex."
The tornado spotted in the Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex
caused heavy damage, including toppled semi trucks and a canopy from an
abandoned gas station that was blown 50 feet, according to CBS DFW. No injuries
have been reported so far, the report added.
More than 30,000 Texans lost power during the storms, according to NBC News.
In total, there were at least 20 tornado reports Sunday
night and Monday morning in Texas, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.
However, survey crews may later find that not all of these tornado reports were
from separate tornadoes, and some of the reports may turn out to be damage from
straight-line winds, not a twister.
Horse barn damaged & trailer overturned in Rio Vista. A
look from Sky 4: pic.twitter.com/Xn6l1QEbCd
— Good Day (@GoodDayFox4) April 27, 2015
Strong thunderstorm winds also downed trees near Brazos
Point, Texas, Sunday night, according to local storm reports.
The Gainesville, Texas, Fire Department reported a
structural fire that was caused by a lightning strike, local storm reports
said. The blaze was confined to a wall and extinguished.
Flooding was also a major concern as these storms rolled
through the Lone Star State. Highway 67 in Cleburne, Texas, was flooded with 3
feet of water early Monday morning, according to local reports.
And because several of the supercells carrying those
reported tornadoes were moving at a slow rate of speed, torrential downpours
associated with the storms led to serious flooding in many of the same areas
threatened by twisters and large hail.
Heavy flooding at Davis Ct and CR 1206 in Rio Vista. Reports
of house on this street with 4 ft water. @NBCDFWWeather pic.twitter.com/9eR7hB44v7
— Ellen Bryan (@EllenBryanNBC5) April 27,
2015
Baseball-sized hail was reported near Stephenville,
about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, and motorists were reporting damage to vehicles, according to the Associated
Press. Stephenville police say shelters have opened at the city library
and other locations.
Source: weather.com