Weather Warning! Gulf Coast Threatened by Tornadoes and Torrential Rains!
Flash flooding might happen across the South early this week as another wave of strong storms drench already saturated terrain, including sections of Texas where hundreds of people were rescued during torrential downpours last week.
More than 14 million people are under flood warnings Monday and Tuesday in a region ranging from Central Texas to the Florida Panhandle, including the rain-soaked districts immediately north of Houston. Metropolitan hubs including as Dallas, New Orleans, Shreveport, Mobile, and Tallahassee may experience floods.
“Severe thunderstorms are forecast today from central and eastern Texas to sections of the Gulf Coast states. The Storm Prediction Centre says that corridors of strong wind gusts, very large hail, and a few tornadoes could form.
The South has been hit by numerous rounds of rain in the last week, including strong storms that rolled across Texas and into Louisiana on Sunday, delivering tennis ball-sized hail and causing the National Weather Service to issue tornado watches and flash flood warnings.
Powerful gusts, hail up to 4 inches in diameter, and a few tornadoes are likely when the storms move across the Gulf Coast Monday and another wall of severe weather begins to form across eastern Texas and Louisiana. The heaviest rains are expected from southeastern Louisiana to western Florida. Rainfall rates in the area might exceed 3 inches per hour, combined with Sunday’s storms to produce up to 8 inches of total rainfall.
Over the last two weeks, parts of the Southeast have been subjected to a constant bombardment of severe storms, pelting the region with damaging winds and hail, as well as dangerous tornadoes and flooding. River gauges in eastern Texas and Louisiana are still high from almost a week of rain, including the Liberty River, which remains in a major flood stage north of Houston. At least seven more rivers in both states are in moderate flood levels.
On Tuesday, the threat shifts further southeast, with most of the storms expected to hit an area spanning the Florida Panhandle and the Carolinas.
Texas is Pummelling by Severe Thunderstorms
Severe storms hitting Texas are just the latest in a string of severe weather events that have afflicted the state since early April.
In the previous month, dozens of tornadoes have ripped over the Texas Panhandle and the Gulf Coast, destroying homes and businesses in their path. Some regions of the state have also been bombarded with softball-sized hail, and months of rain have soaked East Texas, forcing rivers to surge to levels not seen since Hurricane Harvey’s devastating floods of 2017.
Last weekend, more than 200 people were rescued from their homes and vehicles in Harris County, Texas, when downpours caused rivers to overflow and highways to become submerged. According to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, many families were forced to leave cattle stranded, and more than 150 pets were rescued during the hurricane.
Just days before, some areas north of Houston received about two months’ worth of rain, prompting evacuations and water rescues. Back-to-back bouts of rain make the region extremely vulnerable to flash floods because rivers are already overflowing and soils have limited capacity to absorb additional water.