Five reportedly injured in possible Grayson County tornado

Heavy rain and thunderstorms poured across North Texas Tuesday night, producing two possible tornadoes in Grayson County, where five people were reportedly injured and many were left cleaning up their homes in the dark this morning.

The cities of Bells, Howe and Whitesboro were the hardest-hit overnight, leaving many without power, according to the Grayson County Office of Emergency Management. The Howe and Collinsville school districts and Denison High School are closed Wednesday because of damage to many of the campuses.

According to the Oncor power outage map, there were still 93 outages in Grayson County this morning affecting more than 2,000 people.

The Grayson County OEM said in a Facebook post that it will team up with the National Weather Service this morning to fully assess the damage and determine how many tornadoes touched down, along with their strength.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area saw heavy rain totaling almost an inch, along with high winds that reached up to 65 mph in some areas. Although many North Texans braced for large, damaging hail by covering cars with blankets and towels, none was reported in Tarrant County and only small hail was reported in other areas.

No rain is in the forecast for today, which calls for a high of 84 and an overnight low of 61 degrees. It should be mostly sunny with calm winds at 5 to 10 mph.

As the line of storms moved east, a 90-mph wind gust was reported in Sherman at 10:13 p.m. with strong circulation, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather service had forecast hail, wind and possible tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center had placed the Dallas-Fort Worth area under a moderate risk for severe storms, the second-most serious category. The moderate risk included the DFW area, Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kan.

Several school districts, including Fort Worth, Grapevine-Colleyville and Mansfield, canceled after-school and athletic activities Tuesday because of the severe weather threat.

Flights out of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport were delayed up to an hour and 45 minutes at 9 p.m., according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.

The largest hail of the evening, golf-ball size, was reported in Myra in western Cooke County.

The potential for severe weather didn’t scare off thousands of Texas Rangers fans who showed up at Globe Life Park on Tuesday night to watch the game against the New York Yankees.

Flooding alert put on hold

On Tuesday, the Tarrant Regional Water District posted an advisory on its Facebook page that encouraged “lakeside residents in low-lying areas to begin taking precautions now and be prepared for additional flooding.”

But on Wednesday morning, David Marshall, TRWD’s director of engineering and operations support, said the lakeside homes would stay dry for now.

“We dodged a bullet,” Marshall said.

Lake Bridgeport will also reopen to boat traffic at noon Wednesday.

But the risk of flooding may not be over.

Forecasters are predicting two to four inches of rain between Thursday night and Monday, which would likely be enough to threaten some of the lowest homes on Eagle Mountain Lake. There will also be another chance for severe weather on all those days except Sunday.

“If we get three inches or more, that could push it into some homes on Eagle Mountain,” Marshall said. “But it will depend on the intensity of the storms and where that rain falls.”

TRWD continues to encourage residents to monitor conditions and check the agency’s lake level blog for updates.

Staff writer Dylan Bradley contributed to this report.

This story was originally published April 26, 2016 at 6:35 AM with the headline "Five reportedly injured in possible Grayson County tornado."