Texas Spring-2014

[dhweather]

Yep, this is a south of 20, east of 35 event. Still very spotty, I expected more storms to initiate, but there's just been these 3-4 supercells and really nothing else.

[WeatherNewbie]

Looks like a cell is trying to form over Denton.

[TheProfessor]

yeah, it looks like Wednesday will be the one to impact most of the Metroplex, though that might not be a good thing.

[South Texas Storms]

Here in College Station it's very warm and humid, with plenty of sunshine helping to destabilize the atmosphere even more. Should be an interesting late afternoon around here!

[Ralph's Weather]

Looks like we have a two main lines right now, Austin to Paris and Tyler to Texarkana. To me it looks like the I-35 line will overtake the NE TX line as it sits almost stationary. It will be interesting to see if we get anything here as it all marches this way.

[weatherdude1108]

I pulled over at an EXXON in north Austin on way home based on phone radar. It started raining and marble hail mixed in. Got gas too. Other people getting under here (awning). Glad I thought ahead! Still small hail mixed in. Waiting for it to pass over.

Streets dry as I get closer to home.

[TexasSam]

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH OUTLINE UPDATE FOR WS 39
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
515 PM CDT FRI MAR 28 2014

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH 39 IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1000 PM CDT
FOR THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS

TXC015-039-071-089-157-167-201-245-361-473-481-290300-
/O.NEW.KWNS.SV.A.0039.140328T2215Z-140329T0300Z/

TX
. TEXAS COUNTIES INCLUDED ARE

AUSTIN BRAZORIA CHAMBERS
COLORADO FORT BEND GALVESTON
HARRIS JEFFERSON ORANGE
WALLER WHARTON

[ravyrn]

Bad time for severe weather in East Texas. We literally have hundreds if not thousands of people in town at Mud Creek ATV Park for Mud Nationals this weekend. Hopefully the nasty cells miss our immediate area. Got one nasty cell that will miss us by about 5 miles to the south with another cluster of storms out near Palestine that could possibly go overhead. Some wind and thunder being heard but nothing nasty here.

[gpsnowman]

Well poop. I finally heard thunder and saw lightning(out of town during storm 2 weeks ago), but the rain was a disappointment. Like other Storm2kers in winter with cold/snow I feel if there is this much humidity it better rain!! Now skies are clear and 66 degrees. Very pleasant outside. Wonderful weekend on tap. East of here is getting soaked. Maybe next week. Fingers crossed for a drought buster!!

[Texas Snowman]

@EverythingWX: Baseball sized hail (2.75") was reported in Waskom, TX at 6 pm CT. #TXwx

[Portastorm]

Well friends, I had quite the severe weather experience yesterday. Was driving from Austin to Belton and ran into a severe thunderstorm about 10 miles south of Belton (near the Stagecoach Inn in Salado) on the interstate. It was one of those deals where you're driving into it and the sky ahead of you looks black and you're thinking "oh crap ... this will not be fun." Little did I know ...

Being the weather geek I am, I also know a shelf cloud when I see one. And yes, I saw a shelf cloud to my northwest while driving north. I decided to pull off the interstate and seek shelter but couldn't find a covered lot. Pulled into the parking lot of some trailer-oriented business and hoped to ride it out. Well after 10 minutes of high winds, lightning, and heavy rain the hail began. It started small and gradually grew into golf-ball size and a few larger. Probably lasted close to five minutes of steady pea- to golfball-sized hail falling and all I could think about was that StormChasers episode where Reed Timmer had his windshield broken by hail with glass flying everywhere. I'll admit that I had a considerable amount of anxiety at this point. Also a shelf cloud + large hail sometimes = tornadoes. That thought was in my mind as well as I was trying to watch the skies.

Thankfully the onslaught ended after about 15-20 minutes and my remaining 10 miles to Belton were highlighted by portions of a flooded interstate and slow-go traffic. The windshield never broke and the PWC chaser vehicle 2 -- Chevy Tahoe -- remained intact and seemingly undamaged by the hail. Mrs. Portastorm would be happy no damage was done to her vehicle. But I can honestly say that I've experienced many thunderstorms in my life and this one has gotta rank in the top five of my "worst storms I've been outside in" category.

[Rgv20]

Yesterday I drove from the RGV to Denton (Was praying for no hail as I did not want to put my baby in harms way ,Silverado Single Cab!) At 3:30pm I was about 15 Miles south of Waco, I guess I just missed the action huh?

[Portastorm]

:uarrow: Yesterday I drove from the RGV to Denton (Was praying for no hail as I did not want to put my baby in harms way ,Silverado Single Cab!) At 3:30pm I was about 15 Miles south of Waco, I guess I just missed the action huh?

Yeah, you lucked out! It was about 3:30-3:40 when I ran into the storm. Once I got to Belton, my son and others told me they got hit pretty hard with the hail. He was competing in a state band competition at UMHB. Apparently the Killeen area (Fort Hood) also got hammered.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

That huge line of storms and the storms literally split ft bend county. 0.00 rain on my gauge.

[ndale]

Portastorm glad you escaped with little or no damage. Here in Pflugerville we had some pea size hail for about 5 mins and then barely any rain for another 10 or 15.

[Ntxw]

Glad you made it safely Portastorm! Hailstorms are terrifying, I went through the heart of one driving home during the April 3rd outbreak in 2012, we missed the tornado north of 183 but the hail was even was one of those life changing experiences.

In other news, our big El Nino to be is beginning to assert itself. It's quite possible April will begin the first trimonthly of ONI for such threshold. Something interesting to think about. The two recent tradition super El Nino's (1982, 1997) featured some wild tornado's in May in Texas. 1982 featured the deadly F4 in Paris, and 1997 everyone remembers Jarrell.

[TheProfessor]

Can you believe that all of Texas and about 98% of Oklahoma have not been under tornado watch yet.
I wonder how fast that will change.

[ravyrn]

I drove from Jacksonville to Palestine this afternoon for dinner taking a detour through Maydelle and going the rest of the way on US84. Palestine got hit pretty hard. Lots of downed trees along the highway. A lot of the servers and guests were discussing power outages and it seems many in the area had prolonged outages of 15+ hours. On our way home, we passed a few Utility Trucks along the highways repairing stuff so I imagine there may still be people without power in the area tonight.

They must have gotten it worse than we did in Jacksonville as though the winds gusted, nothing too bad. I think east of me got it a bit worse as the storm intensified. I'd be interested to know if there were any injuries at the Mud Creek ATV Park. Apparently there were 25,000 people there this weekend for Mud Nationals (I had no idea it was that huge). Booze, acres upon acres of ATV trails, and a severe thunderstorm... I can't imagine there weren't at least some injuries out there.

On the bright side, the dogwoods and flowers are blooming, the maples are budding a beautiful red, bluebonnets, indian paintbrush, etc. And lots of green grass. Not counting the downed trees and limbs, it was a beautiful drive.

[aggiecutter]

Looks like a significant severe weather event coming later this week for Northern-Northeastern Texas and much of the southern plains:

https://twitter.com/ryanvaughan/status/ ... 49/photo/1

[dhweather]

Porta, glad you are ok - no fun being on open road, knowing what is coming, and little you can do about it or get away from it.


If the dryline had just slowed down some, the metroplex could have gotten appreciable rain. It went too fast, and everything really popped well east of I-35 in NTX. I hate to be a fan of damage causing weather, but we might have a shot Thursday, and I pray for copious amounts of rains. Once again, our nemesis the cap will be in play, that kills a lot of our chances off the bat.