HOUSTON – Millions of people from southeastern Texas, including the Houston metro area, to southwestern Louisiana will be on alert for severe weather Thursday as conditions are favorable for the development of tornadoes, damaging wind gusts and hail during the day and into the evening hours.
ADVICE FOR DEALING WITH STORM ANXIETY WHEN SEVERE WEATHER THREATENS
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has placed an area of southeastern Texas in a level 3 out of 5 on its thunderstorm risk scale, putting more than 5.8 million people in cities like Houston, Pasadena, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, and Missouri City at a higher risk of seeing severe thunderstorms.
An additional 1.6 million people in the surrounding area are in a level 2 out of 5 on the risk scale, and that includes the cities of Galveston, Beaumont, College Station, Bryan and Port Arthur in Texas, and Lake Charles in Louisiana.
HOW YOU SHOULD PREPARE FOR A TORNADO
Conditions will be favorable for supercell thunderstorms to develop from the middle Texas coast into southeastern Texas by around midday.
The FOX Forecast Center says those thunderstorms will have everything needed to rotate, and tornadoes could quickly develop.
“All of that wind shear is at the lowest level of the atmosphere,” FOX Weather Meteorologist Britta Merwin said. “And of course, when you’re talking about something that’s dropping from the cloud deck. So, the fact that the shear is present in that location is a concern.”
THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IF YOU ARE DRIVING AND THERE IS A TORNADO ON THE GROUND
Tornadoes will be possible from southeastern Texas to southwestern Louisiana along the Gulf Coast. However, the higher risk for tornadoes includes the Houston area.
Tornadoes aren’t the only threats: A wider risk of large hail and damaging wind gusts cover millions from the Gulf Coast to Oklahoma in the southern Plains.
In addition to Houston, other cities at risk for these severe weather events include Austin, Waco and Dallas in Texas, Ardmore in Oklahoma and Alexandria and Lafayette in Louisiana.
The severe weather risk tapers off late Thursday evening into Thursday night from west to east.
The threat of severe weather shifts east on Friday and Saturday into the heart of the Gulf Coast and into the Southeast.
So far, the SPC has placed the region at a level 1 out of 5 on its severe thunderstorm risk scale, with damaging wind gusts and a few tornadoes possible.
The risk area includes the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana, Montgomery, Dothan and Mobile in Alabama, and Panama City in Florida.