BREAKING: Risk of Severe Storms for East Texas Has Been Increased

The threat of a severe weather outbreak in East Texas has increased. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma has now placed much of the area around Lufkin and Nacogdoches into the 'Enhanced' risk for severe storms for Thursday.

Biggest Threats for East Texas

Let's go ahead and start with the most dreaded...tornadoes. A few isolated twisters could form in the brown and yellow shaded areas of the map above, but if you take a look at the map below, the overall tornado threat is rather low, with up to a 5% chance that you could have a tornado occurring within 25 miles of your location.

Hail Threat

It looks like large hail is going to be a major threat for a large swath of central and east Texas.

Lufkin and counties to the north and west of Angelina County are included in the 'hatched' area of the map above. That means that there is a 30% chance of hailstones of 2 inches in diameter falling within 25 miles of any given point in that area.

Damaging Winds Threat

Lufkin, Nacogdoches, and many other east Texas towns and cities are included in the red-hatched area in the above map. That means that anyone living in that area is expected to have dangerous and excessive straight-line winds within 25 miles of any given point. Some of those gusts could be of hurricane strength (74+ mph).

Flooding Concerns

The ground is saturated in east Texas so any downpours could lead to localized and isolated flash flooding. However, rainfall totals are expected to stay around a half inch to an inch.

Timing

It will be hot and humid across the Pineywoods today with the heat index reaching over 100 degrees. This will just add more fuel to the severe storm fire, so to speak.

There is only a slight chance of storms this afternoon, but that will increase to a 50% chance after 7 p.m. tonight and continue until about midnight.

Download our free station app to have weather alerts sent to your smartphone. 

Get our free mobile app