Potential for tornadoes along Texas coast

Extreme meteorologist Dr. Reed Timmer reports from a beach near Houston, Texas, where conditions are ramping up for possible severe weather.

Transcript

00:00 Some coastal flooding is happening along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline to the south of Houston.

00:05 This is Surfside Beach, Texas and some of this water has actually come ashore, come over the

00:11 dune here and caused a little bit of flooding. You can see some of these stilt homes that are

00:15 out there a little bit. You wouldn't want to be out there of course in a tropical system.

00:19 It almost feels like a tropical depression out here with that strong onshore flow.

00:23 Big southeasterly winds here near the warm frontal zone and I am monitoring a band of

00:28 convection that is approaching the Houston area from the west. You can see some of the cloud bases

00:33 out there even on some of this convection and if this is able to mature and develop into supercells

00:38 there is going to be the potential for isolated tornadoes and even some water spouts. But so far

00:43 there's a lot of cloudiness ahead of this system. That mid-level dry slot we've been talking about

00:48 has not yet pinched off to the east over top this moisture. That would help to erode some of the

00:55 cloud cover here along the Texas coast and ramp up that instability. Then you'd likely see some

00:59 supercell storms and tornado potential. Thankfully though that elevated mixed layer has been lagging

01:04 behind so far and we haven't had much in the way of dangerous weather around the Houston area.

01:09 We did have a supercell storm earlier near Treasure Island that nearly dropped a water

01:14 spout but this convective line is going to continue pushing off to the east. Eventually

01:18 late night tonight that upper level drop is going to eject and that could bring an uptick in the

01:23 tornado potential near the Texas-Louisiana border possibly even as far east as Lake Charles area.

01:28 That low-level jet will begin to accelerate and it's possible that as that vort max, the upper

01:33 level storm system, finally ejects that it could result in that increase in severe weather out near

01:38 the Sabine River Valley. But until then stay tuned to those severe weather watches and warnings across

01:43 the Houston area. It does appear for now that the severity of this event is definitely on the way

01:49 down and it looks like the tornado potential is becoming a lot less likely.