After morning of golf ball-size hail, more hail, damaging winds forecast in Fort Worth
Golf ball-size hail covered the ground in parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth region early Tuesday morning, foreshadowing severe weather expected in the evening and overnight hours such as hail and damaging wind gusts as fast as 60 mph.
There will also be conditions capable of producing tornadoes, according to meteorologist Jason Godwin of the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
A low pressure system carrying moist air from the Gulf of Mexico moved through a narrow corridor of Tarrant County around 4 a.m. Tuesday, producing hail as large as 2 inches in diameter in Blue Mound, Godwin said. The storm, he said, tracked southeast from Azle to Haltom City, to North Richland Hills, to Arlington and Mansfield.
Hail sizes ranged from an inch to 2 inches in diameter, according to reports on the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center.
A cold front is expected to move through Oklahoma and then North Texas on Tuesday night on the heels of the humid weather and lead to storms, Godwin said. The biggest danger will be the damaging winds, he said, but people should also be on the lookout for another round of hail and the possibility of squall lines producing tornadoes.
The storms should arrive in areas of North Texas like Decatur around 9 or 10 p.m. Tuesday and make their way to the DFW Metroplex between about 10 p.m. and midnight, Godwin said.
“I would probably go damaging winds being the highest threat then hail, then tornadoes — in that order,” Godwin said. “Luckily this thing will be moving pretty quick, so I don’t think there’s a real great potential for things like flash flooding, other than maybe a little bit of ponding of water in construction zones and such.”
A flood warning was in effect for the Elm Fork Trinity River near Carrollton on Tuesday until further notice, according to the weather service. There were no other warnings or watches in effect in North Texas as of Tuesday morning, but Godwin noted that will likely change as storms progress.
The possible hail from squall lines late Tuesday isn’t expected to be as large as the hail that fell in the morning, he said. Conditions were more ripe for large hail at that time, with humidity at the ground level but colder temperatures higher in the atmosphere.
The weather service posted a photo to Twitter on Tuesday morning of a piece of hail against a ruler, showing it was about 1.5 inches in diameter.
But Godwin said there are still possible dangers associated with the anticipated storms, especially the high winds, and he advised people to keep up to date with weather reports for updates on the forecast.
A map from the weather service shows storms moving into far North Texas like Gainesville and Paris between 7 and 10 p.m. Tuesday, before moving into the DFW region between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. and continuing south into Waco, Palestine and Killeen between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.
The high temperature in Fort Worth on Tuesday was expected to be near 88 degrees, while Wednesday was expected to be cooler, with a possible high of around 79, according to the weather service.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 11:47 AM.
