Severe Storm Coverage | 370K without power supply, ground stop raised to IAH

UPDATE:

• Ground stop lifted at IAH

• At least a dozen NW Harris County voting centers lose power

• Warning of severe thunderstorms until 2:45 p.m. in Wharton and Brazoria counties

• Power delivered 370K at 2:30 p.m.

• 342,000 people without power at 2:20 p.m. from CenterPoint (286K) and Entergy (56K)

• 194.00 people without power at 1:40 p.m. from CenterPoint and Entergy

• 85,555 people without power, according to CenterPoint’s Outage Tracker as of 1:15 p.m.

USE THIS: Track floodwaters in real time with Houston’s flood alert system

This afternoon’s forecast:

A strong line of storms moved through southeast Texas, bringing large hail, damaging winds and heavy rain. More than three inches of rain fell in the downtown area. Many have lost power.

Flood warnings are in effect until this afternoon. Although the rain has mostly subsided, waters are still high on many streets. Be careful on the roads. When in doubt, find an alternate route. Several cars were flooded this afternoon.

Electrical power reached more than 300,000 at the height of the storm, around 2:30 p.m.

“A lot of these storms come with a huge amount of lightning as they pass through,” said KPRC 2 meteorologist Justin Stapleton.

We are monitoring a threat of flooding and severe weather this afternoon and tonight.

“This could be a system that moves very quickly over the course of the afternoon, over the next 2 to 3 hours,” Stapleton said. “I wouldn’t be shocked to see a chance of hail and we could also see a potential for strong, damaging winds.”

Tonight’s forecast:

These storms continue to advance towards the coast. As the storms move through, conditions will improve significantly. The rest of the evening should remain calm. Additional storms are possible early Wednesday morning until sunrise.

Why is it so blurry?

We haven’t seen a blue sky since Sunday? 168 active fires in Mexico and Central America are burning a quarter of a million acres of land. Smoke from these fires moved into southeast Texas, making air quality poor. Today’s storms have cleared the smoke and brought better air quality for the remainder of the week.

10-day forecast and heat index:

There is some relief from the heat in the forecast. It is replaced by thunderstorms but no excessive heat in the 10-day forecast.