Many North Texans woke up to severe thunderstorms Tuesday morning that caused power outages in more than half a million homes in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties, according to an Oncor outage tracker.
Most of the damage from the up to 70-mile-per-hour winds came in the form of downed trees and powerlines. The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch and flash flood warning for much of the Dallas-Fort Worth area through 11 a.m. Tuesday.
As of 8 p.m. Monday, there was a 50% chance of a storm in North Texas on Tuesday, according to KXAS-TV (NBC5)’s forecast. Warnings of a potential thunderstorm in the area were issued by the National Weather Service in Fort Worth in the early hours of Tuesday, said Sarah Barnes, a meteorologist with the service, and a tornado warning was issued at 6:13 a.m. on X.
These types of storms can be predicted, said John Nielsen-Gammon, a professor in the department of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, but it’s difficult to say how severe they will be until they start forming.
“Until the dominoes actually start falling, you don’t know what’s actually going to happen,” he said.
Storm was known
The National Weather Service in Fort Worth had been aware of the potential for severe weather for the last several days, Barnes said. Initially, storms were expected for Tuesday afternoon or evening, but were later predicted for the morning as well, she said.
The agency first put out a severe thunderstorm watch — when there’s a risk of hazardous weather but it is unclear how severe it may be or where it may strike — at 12:59 a.m. Tuesday for Cooke, Grayson and Montague counties along the Red River.
A second watch issued at 3:25 a.m. expanded to include Collin, Denton, Jack, Wise and Young counties. The agency issued another severe thunderstorm watch at 4:49 a.m. for 21 North and Central Texas counties, including many in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
At 10:52 a.m., the National Weather Service canceled its severe thunderstorm watch for 17 North and Central Texas counties, including Dallas.
The storm came just days after a high-speed tornado swept through at least 50 miles of North Texas, killing seven people, injuring more than 100 and destroying homes.
Predictions come with uncertainty
Meteorologists can often predict a storm weeks in advance, Barnes said. This involves running weather observations through a computer simulation.
But it’s difficult for meteorologists to say how a storm will actually behave until closer to when it occurs, said Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Houston.
Without real-time environmental data, “you’re never going to get a perfect picture,” Gori said. “When it’s happening, [meteorologists] have some observations, they have radar, so they’re able to kind of ingest that observed data into their model.”
Barnes said the National Weather Service anticipated winds over 50 miles per hour, but not as strong as up to 70. “There was no way we could anticipate these crazy winds that came through,” she said. “We didn’t know that they would be that strong.”
A storm can become more severe when it hits an area with more heat or air moisture, Gori said.
Given this unpredictability, Barnes said, it’s hard for meteorologists to give a more definitive warning to the public.
She recommended being aware of when storm seasons are and checking multiple sources for weather updates — from the National Weather Service, including its Storm Prediction Center, to local news.
“You need to have multiple ways to receive [weather] warnings because not any method is perfect,” she said.
Miriam Fauzia is a science reporting fellow at The Dallas Morning News. Her fellowship is supported by the University of Texas at Dallas. The News makes all editorial decisions.
