Violent storms slam Houston and Dallas as 1.4 million lose power in Texas (2024)

The storms cut power to nearly 400,000 customers in Dallas County and 280,000-plus in Harris County, home to Houston. Dozens of counties to the southeast of Dallas and north of Houston had extensive outages affecting 30 percent to 60 percent of total customers.

The severe weather in Texas affected runoff elections from Super Tuesday primaries in March. The Dallas County Elections Department said in a statement that because of the weather and power outages, voting hours were extended until 9 p.m.

Additional storms were possible in western and southern portions of Texas into the evening Tuesday.

Dallas was slammed by two complexes of storms in about 12 hours — the first late Monday afternoon, the second before dawn Tuesday.

The storms Tuesday morning brought winds of more than 70 mph around Dallas and its surrounding areas. A gust of 83 mph was clocked in Denton, while Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Love Field airports recorded gusts of 77 mph and 75 mph, respectively.

As these same storms headed south, they produced heavy rain, hail and numerous wind gusts of 60 mph or higher, affecting Lufkin and Coldspring while diving toward the Houston area. A gust of 75 mph was observed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport just north of Houston.

Reports of wind damage trickled into the area from Houston to Lake Charles on Tuesday afternoon, where gusts of around 55 to 60 mph were common. A carwash roof collapsed in Kountze, northwest of Beaumont.

During the early-morning storms near Dallas, the National Weather Service received reports of downed trees and damaged buildings, including a roof torn off a commercial building near Addison, a suburb about 13 miles north of Dallas. “Major damage” was reported at North Forney High School, about 23 miles east of the city.

Social media videos showed sheets of rain being blown sideways by the vicious gusts as lightning flashed frequently. The visibility at Dallas-Fort Worth International dropped to zero during the storm. In Houston, similar scenes emerged during the midafternoon as visibility dipped and skies turned black.

Before that, Dallas was hit Monday afternoon when a lone supercell or rotating thunderstorm blossomed directly over the city. One storm cell over Tarrant County, just west of Dallas, dropped hail the size of baseballs. Social media video even captured the moments that hail shattered skylights at a Walmart, with chunks of ice and shards of glass raining down onto the store’s shopping floor below.

The Weather Service received more than 100 reports of large hail Monday, mostly from northeastern portions of Texas.

It was initially unclear how much damage occurred across the region, but hail is the most expensive severe thunderstorm hazard in the Lone Star State. Hail damage routinely surpasses that of thunderstorm winds or tornadoes.

Monday night’s hailstorms towered to more than 60,000 feet high and were even visible from north of Oklahoma City some 180 miles away.

Texas storms have been forming at the northern periphery of a “heat dome,” or ridge of high pressure, that’s been parking over Mexico and creating record temperatures there. Thunderstorms like to straddle the edge of heat domes, riding the boundary along which temperatures change with distance. So-called ridge runners also tap into jet stream energy, mixing momentum to the surface in the form of damaging straight-line winds.

Fortunately, the weather looks like it will be comparatively quiet Wednesday. But another band of windy thunderstorms is expected to crop up Thursday across the Colorado High Plains and blast southeast toward Dallas.

Jason Samenow contributed to this report.