Scattered strong to severe thunderstorms have erupted across parts of East Texas this evening, after hours of waiting for things to begin. I wasn’t entirely sure they would start, but they finally did.
We have heavy storms with hail and heavy rain on Highway 79 from Jacksonville up to Henderson. Another small cluster of severe storms is on Highway 84 from Cushing and Mount Enterprise east to Timpson, moving toward Tenaha.
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The most intense storms are producing tennis-ball-sized hail and localized wind gusts over 70 MPH. With storms generally moving east/northeast at 25 MPH, some storms are ‘training’ – or moving over areas that previously received heavy rain – which results in flash flooding from excessive rainfall.
We anticipate storms to continue into late night and early Monday morning. Over time, storms will begin drifting farther south, with potential new development late tonight in the eastern Brazos Valley.
A cluster of storms may organize and begin moving south into the eastern Brazos Valley and East Texas. Around 3 to 4 AM, we may see storms move south into parts of Southeast Texas and the Golden Triangle. The overall severe weather threat will decrease somewhat overnight, but some of the stronger storms may continue producing hail and strong wind gusts, along with frequent cloud-to-ground lightning.