Much of Texas is bracing for another round of powerful storms that could bring strong rain, high winds and very large hail on Tuesday, forecasters said, just as the region was recovering from deadly tornadoes over the weekend.
Severe weather began to hit early on Tuesday, as the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for areas east of Dallas that expired at 6:30 a.m. local time. “Take cover now!” said a message from the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, Texas. There were reports of wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour, the Weather Service said on social media.
Forecasters also issued a severe thunderstorm watch for parts of Texas until 11 a.m. local time and warned of strong to severe thunderstorms starting in the late afternoon. The storms would come with the potential for significant damaging wind, with gusts as high as 75 miles per hour, and could bring hail the size of limes in parts of the state.
More than 180,000 customers were without power in Texas as of 6:30 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. Amarillo, Dallas and San Antonio are also at risk, though to a lesser degree.
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.
Texas has had a particularly bad spate of weather this spring, with heavy rain inundating parts of the state just weeks ago.
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 7,000 flight delays in or out of the United States on Tuesday, and nearly 500 cancellations, 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.
Jenny Gross and Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting.
