Powerful storms rumble across Texas Friday with another round of large hail, tornado warnings
Large portions of Texas endured another stormy day with hail and gusty winds Friday, as Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm watches covered more than 15 million residents, including cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and Houston.
Strong storms strike Texas
Large portions of Texas endured another stormy day with hail and gusty winds on Friday.
Large portions of Texas endured another stormy day with hail and gusty winds Friday, as Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm watches covered more than 15 million residents, including cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and Houston.
One of five Tornado Warnings issued in Texas Friday was for Hamilton County, which included the communities of Pottsville and Midway, west of Waco. A wall cloud was spotted during the storm, which was an indication that there could be a potential tornado, if the thunderstorm continued to organize.
![Temple, Texas storms]()
Image 1 of 4Temple, Texas around 3:45 p.m. local time on 4/28/2023 (Terri McQueed/America's Weather Watchers)
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Image 2 of 4Hail in Mansfield around 5 p.m. on 4/28/2023 (nadeanelkassih/Instagram)
![Storm clouds over Dallas]()
Image 3 of 4Storm clouds over Dallas (@kevinpost/Twitter)
![Hamilton County, Texas Tornado Warning]()
Image 4 of 4Hamilton County, Texas Tornado Warning ( )
Not far away, golf ball-size hail was reported in Arnett, Texas. Typically, when hailstones are larger than golf balls, building roofs can be damaged, and vehicles are dented. A spotter in Troy reported a hail stone of 1.75 inches in diameter.
The FOX Forecast Center also tracked a supercell through the Fort Hood area that storm trackers warned likely contained a tornado that was rain-wrapped. Video from storm chaser Joseph Idler later showed some downed cell phone towers and power lines as well as damage to a few buildings in Fort Hood.
Possible tornado damage in Fort Hood, Texas
Storm chaser video shows aftermath after a storm with a possible tornado left damage behind in Fort Hood, Texas. (Video: Joseph Idler / StormChasingVideo.com)
More than 165,000 electrical outages were reported by PowerOutage.us. One of the harder impacted areas appeared to be Bell County, between Austin and Waco. Storm spotters reported golf ball-size hail and a wind gust of 76 mph.
Areas in far south Texas in Hidalgo County was hit hard with outages as well as thunderstorms brought ferocious wind guts. McAllen reported a gust of 58 mph but video from storms in the area appeared to show even higher gusts:
As of Friday night, the SPC had received just over 100 reports of severe weather, with more than 85% of witness accounts being hail.
The largest reported hailstone was in Hamilton, Texas, where ice greater than the size of a baseball fell.
Wall cloud forms in Hamilton, Texas
Storm chaser Nick Smego caught a wall cloud forming in Hamilton, Texas.