East Texas Is On Alert For Severe Weather Potential Friday Afternoon
After all it is springtime in East Texas and if you've been here for any length of time you know about the potential for severe storms is routine. If you're new, get ready, it could be scary for some.
Friday afternoon East Texas could experience some pretty strong thunderstorms that have the potential to produce high winds, large hail, flash flooding and a possible tornado. Although the risk for tornadoes with this round of storms is rather low, according to KLTV 7 Meteorologist Cody Gottschalk, a tornado can't be ruled out.
A dry line will form ahead of a cold front as it makes it way toward East Texas. Ahead of this we can expect a large mass of rain and thunderstorms to move in by early afternoon that could dump quite a bit of rain on the area. We'll experience a break before the main event arrives thanks to a quick moving cold front.
The next round of rain should be here by late evening right ahead of a cold front. With this round of rain and thunderstorms ahead of the front we could experience wind gusts of 60-80 mph, hail as big as 2" along with 1-3" of rain that could cause flash flooding. The Storm Prediction Center has East Texas under a 'slight risk' for strong to severe thunderstorms to develop. A slight risk is a 2 on a scale of 5.
You'll want to be weather aware Friday afternoon through early Saturday morning. We'll keep you up to date on changing severe weather conditions with the StormTracker 7 Weather Team at KLTV 7 if things should get real bad.
Remember, while driving if you encounter a flooded roadway, turn around - don't drown. That water moves fast and you don't know if the road under that water has been washed out or not.