{"id":270583,"date":"2026-04-29T00:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/270583\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T00:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:39:10","slug":"severe-storms-sweep-the-south-with-possible-tornadoes-and-large-hail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/270583\/","title":{"rendered":"Severe Storms Sweep the South, With Possible Tornadoes and Large Hail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Storms moving through the central part of the United States on Tuesday brought with them the potential for damaging winds and a few tornadoes, and the National Weather Service warned of a particularly high risk of what it called \u201cgiant\u201d hail around Dallas.<\/p>\n

Emergency officials in Palo Pinto County, west of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, said there had been reports of possible tornado damage across a large swath of Mineral Wells, Texas, a city about 50 miles west of Fort Worth. Officials had also received reports of some injuries, including people who had been transported to a hospital.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear how many people had been hurt, nor was the extent of their injuries.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service had received reports of tree damage as well as reports of hail the size of golf balls in the Mineral Wells area.<\/p>\n

Images and videos emerging on social media showed felled trees, as well as buildings with roof damage and one building that appeared to have its windows blown out.<\/p>\n

The forecast was the latest in a nearly weeklong sequence of stormy days in the region. On Monday, a man died in Michigan when a tree fell on him<\/a> in high winds, and severe storms brought down trees and power lines in the Midwest.<\/p>\n

The threat on Tuesday was focused over portions of the Midwest, Southern Plains and Southeast, where a tornado watch covered a broad area from North Texas to West Tennessee and northern Alabama. By early Tuesday afternoon, a few brief tornado warnings had been issued.<\/p>\n

Forecasters were especially focused on an area of North Texas, where they warned that hail as large as a softball could fall from the sky on Tuesday afternoon and evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cHail that size can shatter a window,\u201d said Allison Prater, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

Judge Clay Jenkins of Dallas County, the top elected official there, told residents on social media to have several ways of receiving weather alerts on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis afternoon and evening have the chance to be VERY active for severe weather,\u201d Judge Jenkins wrote on social media. \u201cAll hazards are possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several rounds of thunderstorms are expected into the evening, bringing a risk of damaging winds, large hail, heavy rain and a few tornadoes. Some could intensify into highly organized, long-lived supercell thunderstorms.<\/p>\n

Thunderstorms are fueled by rapidly rising columns of warm, moist air known as updrafts. The updraft lasts about 30 minutes or less in a typical thunderstorm and can endure for over an hour in a supercell. Giant hail is most often a product of a supercell.<\/p>\n

The thunderstorm threat on Tuesday ranged from a Level 1 to 3 out of 5 across a broad area of the Southern Plains and Southeast, but in the afternoon, forecasters bumped Dallas up to a Level 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main concern with the storms today in that area is the potential for very large hail and that\u2019s what drove that upgrade in the risk category,\u201d said Harry Weinman, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center. \u201cWe also have concern for damaging winds, and we can\u2019t rule out tornadoes as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quieter weather is expected after Tuesday. While there is still a chance for severe storms on Wednesday, the risk level is much lower than it has been in recent days.<\/p>\n

Jesus Jim\u00e9nez contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Storms moving through the central part of the United States on Tuesday brought with them the potential for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,43498,104,103,3059,27,464,172,5823],"class_list":["post-270583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-tex","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-fort-worth-tex","tag-texas","tag-united-states","tag-weather","tag-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}