Texas has had 36 $100 million disasters from severe thunderstorms in the past 25 years. Only five of the disasters were tornadoes. Twenty-nine were from something that oftentimes isn’t taken as seriously: hail. And Texans may see another expensive hailstorm Wednesday.
“The environment for Wednesday afternoon is favorable for very large hail,” the National Weather Service in Dallas-Fort Worth tweeted. Meteorologists are eyeing cold temperatures aloft and lots of lifting energy to grow hail.
“Much of [the energy is in] ideal icing layers for hail production,” the Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center wrote.
Storms could fire up late Wednesday afternoon or early evening in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Models suggest one cluster east of the city could merge into a broken line of severe thunderstorms that will drift northeast along Interstate 30 into southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas.
National Weather Service✔@NWS
“The greatest threat for severe storms this afternoon/evening is from central TX across the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex to southern OK, and from southern KS to the northern TX Panhandle. Expect DAMAGING HAIL, a few severe gusts, and tornadoes…” @NWSSPC https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html …
While models are only a crude guide to where storms will develop, Dallas has a chance to see large hail, perhaps reaching baseball size in isolated spots. The odds of hail increase some in its northern suburbs. Damaging winds and an isolated tornado threat also can’t be ruled out.