Julio Cortés/AP
Vehicles are tangled in the debris of a collapsed auto body shop Sunday after a tornado ripped through Valley View, Texas.
CNN
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Powerful storms are bringing a new round of severe weather to Texas on Tuesday, after a nearly incessant parade of destructive and sometimes deadly storms in recent weeks. Additional storms will hit more of the Southern Plains throughout the day.
Storms were brewing across the Dallas-Fort Worth metro early Tuesday morning, bringing hurricane-force wind gusts and stoking fears of a tornado. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport recorded a wind gust of 77 mph early Tuesday as power outages in the area began to skyrocket.
More than 650,000 customers in Texas were without power and that number continued to climb, according to PowerOutage.us. More than half of the outages occurred in Dallas County.
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These storms came even as some residents still mourn at least seven people killed in the state during severe storms over Memorial Day weekend. In total, nearly two dozen people, including four children, were killed in five states as storms battered the central United States during the holiday season, and several communities are grappling with significant loss of life. homes and businesses.
Central and North Texas face the most serious severe weather threat Tuesday. After the morning storms, other storms are expected to develop in the afternoon. Large hail, lightning and wind gusts up to 80 mph are the main threats from any storm. A few tornadoes could also occur, according to the National Weather Service.
Sweltering heat will accompany the storms in parts of Texas – part of a sprawling heat wave that has ravaged the South in recent days.
A less severe risk of severe storms extends across the Southern Plains and a small portion of the Southeast, including most of Texas and parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and western New Mexico, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
Although not at the highest risk of the day, the Texas cities of Houston, San Antonio and Shreveport, Louisiana, could still experience severe storms.
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Back-to-back deluges could make it more difficult for some communities still trying to pick up the pieces after an exceptional number of tornadoes and destructive storms ravaged the central United States in recent weeks.
Sunday was the busiest severe weather day of the year so far, with more than 600 reports of strong winds or hail in more than 20 states, including gusts over 75 mph and hail the size of a softball. Twenty-six tornado reports were also made across 10 states. The storms turned homes and businesses into piles of rubble, tossed cars and brought down power lines.
More than 200,000 homes and businesses in seven states were without power Monday evening after the same storm system crossed the East, according to PowerOutage.us. Kentucky saw the highest number of outages, more than 90,000, but residents of Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia and Virginia were also in limbo.
An early-season heat wave has sweltered parts of the South in recent days, causing heat indexes to rise into the triple digits in states including Texas, Louisiana and Florida.
These heat indices, which measure how the body actually feels under humidity and air temperature, are expected to start falling back into the 90s by Wednesday across most of the South, but some Texans will face higher indices for a little longer.
Heat advisories are in effect Tuesday in West Texas’ Brewster County and the Davis Mountains and foothills. Temperatures could reach 110 degrees in the region, according to the National Weather Service.
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Extreme heat is the deadliest form of natural disaster in the United States, surpassing tornadoes and floods. Soaring temperatures can cause an increase in emergency room visits for heat-related illnesses such as heat stroke or heat exhaustion.
Heat waves like the one hitting the South this week are becoming more frequent, intense and lasting as the planet warms due to human-caused climate change. They also become more difficult to endure as hot temperatures accelerate during the night – not cooling enough to offer our bodies some relief.