Texans slammed with another round of storms after a destructive and deadly weekend
Hundreds of thousands of customers are also without power after what was a deadly, destructive weekend in Texas.
DALLAS, Texas -- Powerful storms are delivering yet another round of violent weather to Texas on Tuesday after an almost unrelenting parade of destructive and sometimes deadly storms in recent weeks. Additional storms will pound more of the Southern Plains throughout the day.
Storms were roaring through the Dallas-Fort Worth metro early Tuesday morning, delivering hurricane-force wind gusts and stirring tornado fears. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport recorded a wind gust of 77 mph early Tuesday as power outages in the region started to skyrocket.
Nearly 775,000 customers in Texas were without power at 9:50 a.m. Central Time - and that number continues to climb, according to PowerOutage.us. More than 300,000 of the outages were in Dallas County.
These storms have arrived even as some residents are still mourning at least seven people killed in the state during violent storms over Memorial Day weekend. In total, almost two dozen people, including four children, were killed across five states as storms hit the central US over the holiday period, and several communities are grappling with significant losses of homes and businesses.
Central and northern Texans face Tuesday's most serious threat of severe weather. In the wake of morning storms, additional storms are likely to fire up in the afternoon. Large hail, lightning and wind gusts as strong as 80 mph are the main threats with any storm. A few tornadoes may also occur, according to the National Weather Service.
Sweltering heat will accompany the storms across portions of Texas - part of a sprawling heat wave that has been baking the South in recent days.
A less serious risk of severe storms stretches across swaths of the Southern Plains and a small portion of the Southeast, including most of Texas and parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and western New Mexico, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
Though not under the day's highest risk, the Texas cities of Houston and San Antonio and Shreveport, Louisiana still could see severe storms.
Back-to-back deluges could make it difficult for some communities still trying to pick up the pieces after an exceptional number of tornadoes and destructive storms have torn through the central U.S. in recent weeks.
Sunday was the busiest severe weather day of the year so far, with more than 600 reports of strong winds or hail across more than 20 states, including gusts over 75 mph and hail the size of softballs. Twenty-six tornado reports also were made in 10 states. Storms turned homes and businesses into piles of rubble, flung cars and brought down power lines.
More than 200,000 homes and businesses across seven states were without power Monday night after the same storm system pushed through the East, according to PowerOutage.us. Kentucky had the most outages at more than 90,000, but people in Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia and Virginia also were in the dark.
Some Texans also face sweltering heat
SEE ALSO: ABC13 Weather Alert Day for the potential for severe storms this afternoon
An early-season heat wave has been suffocating parts of the South in recent days, causing heat indices to rocket into the triple digits in states including Texas, Louisiana and Florida.
Those heat indices, which measure how the body actually feels under humidity and air temperature, are expected to start falling back into the 90s by Wednesday across most of the South, but some Texans will have to face higher indices for a bit longer.
Heat advisories are in place Tuesday across western Texas's Brewster County and the Davis Mountains and their foothills. Temperatures could reach as high as 110 degrees in the area, according to the National Weather Service.
Extreme heat is the most deadly form of natural disaster in the US, beating out tornadoes and flooding. Skyrocketing temperatures can cause spikes in emergency room visits for heat-related illnesses such as heat stroke or heat exhaustion.
Heat waves like the one enveloping the South this week are becoming increasingly common, intense and long-lasting as the planet warms due to human-driven climate change. They are also becoming harder to endure as temperatures warm faster overnight - not cooling down enough to offer our bodies some relief.
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