NWS looks ahead after 13 reported tornadoes in East Texas
Posted/updated on: July 18, 2024 at 3:04 am
TYLER — The Shreveport National Weather Service reported record-breaking severe weather events after last Monday’s tropical storm that impacted several East Texas counties, according to our news partner KETK. “The 13 tornadoes that we got across East Texas were actually part of a bigger outbreak when Tropical Storm Beryl moved across the region,” Chris Nuttall, Shreveport National Weather Service lead meteorologist, said. The NWS Shreveport team oversees East Texas, Northern Louisiana, and Southwest Arkansas.
“That night when Beryl moved through, we issued 67 tornado warnings in the space of, really, about nine hours,” Nuttall said.
The NWS is anticipating an active hurricane season ahead. “There is no way to tell at this point whether a hurricane or tropical storm is going to move through our area, but the season is pretty long, we’re just at the start of it, it’s going to go until late October, early November,” Nuttall said.
The NWS explained that there are still areas they have not surveyed, so 13 tornadoes in East Texas is just a preliminary report.
“We have a couple of areas that we still need to go out and visit that we haven’t been able to get to yet so it’s possible our number of tornadoes will still change,” Nuttall said.
The Rusk County Emergency Management Coordinator shared that it took them four days to get back on track. “Lots of boots on the ground getting power back up,. getting trees cut, our volunteer fire departments and our law enforcement partners did an awesome job,” Patrick Dooley, Rusk County fire marshal And emergency management coordinator, said. Three of the tornadoes hit Rusk County.
“Luckily we had no injuries, no fatalities out of that as far as tornadoes go, that was a lot having three of them. And the thing was they spun up quick and went away just as fast,” Dooley said.
The National Weather Service said now is a great time to prepare and make sure you have a plan in case of extended power outages a weather radio and extra medicine just in case.
