Powerful storms struck Texas again on Tuesday, bringing rain, strong winds and large hail, causing widespread damage, knocking out power to more than a million customers and halting flights at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for several hours.
The storm caused widespread damage across the Dallas area, including downed power lines, uprooted trees and overturned tractor-trailers, according to the National Weather Service.
More than 800,000 customers were still without power by Tuesday evening, mostly in North Texas and the eastern part of the state, according to PowerOutage.us, which compiles data from utility companies across the country. Dallas County Chief Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said Tuesday that the outages could last for days and that officials were prioritizing restoring service to hospitals and police buildings. The hospital was running on generators, he added.
Central Texas faces the greatest risk of severe weather Tuesday afternoon, with a moderate risk forecast for a melon-shaped area including Abilene, Waco, Austin and Midland. Amarillo, Dallas and San Antonio are also at risk.
The severe weather threat comes as more than 2.6 million people are under heat watches across South Texas, where several days of scorching heat have been reported.
A series of thunderstorms with maximum wind gusts of 86 mph was recorded in the Denton area northwest of Dallas, with a second round bringing wind gusts of about 60 mph, said Tom Bradshaw, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
The weather service said on social media that the storm included damaging winds with gusts of up to 70 mph and golf-ball-sized hail.
Matt Staley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, said the weather service would not assess whether a tornado occurred, adding that much of the damage in the area was likely caused by strong straight-line winds.
By midday, the storm had moved beyond the eastern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but “there's a good chance we'll see another one” Tuesday night, Bradshaw said.
Parts of Texas were also hit by extreme heat on Tuesday, with Laredo's heat index expected to reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and Brownsville and Corpus Christi both forecast to exceed 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We're seeing more summer-like weather than normal,” said Tim Humphrey, a meteorologist with the Corpus Christi Weather Service.
Humphrey said that through Tuesday, the Corpus Christi area had recorded eight consecutive days where overnight temperatures did not drop below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
“When it's very hot at night, your body doesn't have time to recover,” he says.
Much of Mexico was hit by a heat wave for several days, killing dozens of howler monkeys and causing rolling blackouts. The heatwave across South Texas is the result of high temperatures moving north from Mexico as warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico bring moisture to the state, Humphrey said. The humidity combined with high temperatures is creating a dangerous heat index for much of South Texas, he said.
The Texas storm came on the heels of severe weather that battered 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 of customers without power. Heavy rain and strong winds disrupted holiday travel plans from the Midwest to the East Coast.
Texas has seen particularly bad weather this spring, with heavy rains flooding parts of the state just a few weeks ago.
Dallas County election officials said the start of the runoff election was delayed due to bad weather. Jenkins said 103 polling places had lost power, but 180 were open.
Grant Cruz, a spokesman for Texas utility Oncor, said at a news conference that crews were assessing the damage on Tuesday. Cruz said the response was a matter of “complete rebuilding,” not just repairing downed lines.
“We ask for everyone's patience,” he said.
Heath Montgomery, a spokesman for Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, said the Federal Aviation Administration had banned flights at the airport from 5:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. He said about 90 flights were canceled that day and many were diverted to other airports.
Outside of Texas, a lull is expected in Kentucky over the next few days as National Guard and forestry crews continue to work to clear trees and dangerous debris from powerful storms that killed four people over the weekend. The National Weather Service in Louisville is forecasting mostly dry weather over the next few days, with no rain expected through the weekend.
Severe storms were possible across central Oklahoma on Tuesday, starting early in the morning and moving south through the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma. Severe storms with large hail were possible in southern Oklahoma. Not so intense The rain is expected to subside by early Tuesday morning, the weather service said, but golf-ball-sized hail and wind gusts up to 60 mph are still possible later that day. Severe storms ripped through north Tulsa over the weekend, leaving two people dead.
After a wet, windy and chaotic Memorial Day in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, sunny, summer-like weather returned by Tuesday morning with highs in the low to mid 80s Fahrenheit.
Flight-tracking website FlightAware said 2,000 flights were delayed and 300 canceled to and from the U.S. on Tuesday. More than 2.9 million flights were canceled on Friday. Inspected at a US airportAccording to the Transportation Security Administration, this is a single-day record.
Kristin Hauser, Jesus Jimenez and Ernesto Londoño Contributed report.