Rain returned to southeast Texas along with strong thunderstorms flashing lightning that may have sparked several house fires. Also, the storms pelted several neighborhoods with hail from Magnolia to Katy to Stafford. While the rain isn't enough to squash our dent, every drop counts and there were some neighborhoods on our Weather Bug network that saw over an inch in the bucket.
Closer to town, an odd thing happened as the storms approached. They seemed to split in two with one batch going east of downtown and the other west; that is reflected in the rain totals:
The storms also blew in with strong winds that felled trees in western Fort Bend county and eastern Wharton county around Simonton, Orchard and East Bernard. Also, a tree fell on a car in Missouri City. The drought and weakened roots made it easy for those trees to topple. Here's a look at some of the other high wind gusts that accompanied today's storms:
Today's storms formed along the stationary boundary that's been sitting over us the past few days. Our atmosphere was primed with plenty of moist air and as temperatures soared into the 90s, the ingredients came together for big storms. We won't see a repeat on Friday as a cool front arrives. By mid-morning it will begin moving out the hot humid air that helped spark today's storms replacing it with drier, breezy weather by afternoon. Temperatures may top out at 90°, but we'll spend most of the day in the 80s. By Saturday morning, it'll be quite comfortable with lows in the 50s!
