Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Wind Damage from Yesterday's T-Storms

With temperatures soaring to near 105 degrees across much of southcentral Texas late yesterday afternoon, thunderstorms developed at peak heating across Travis and Williamson counties (on the north side of the Austin metro area), then spread south across the region.

The Bastrop and Kyle/Buda areas received a much needed 1 to 2 inches of rain, but also some strong, gusty winds that caused damage, particularly in the Bastrop area.

The roof of the Bastrop Central Appraisal District suffered damage, as well as part of the roof of the adjacent justice center. 


Back up in North Austin, roof damage was also reported at the Lifetime fitness in Cedar Park.

I wasn't able to capture any radar images in real time yesterday evening, but plan to download the archive later today and will take a look and post some images. 

I hate to guess as to the cause of the damage without first looking at the radar imagery, but given the extreme heat of the day and the type of thunderstorms that formed, I would have to lean toward some type of microburst or downburst at this point.  Such an occurrence is common in this type of situation, affecting very isolated, localized areas with damage usually not widespread.

Lightning strikes also reportedly caused a house fire in Kyle, and numerous power outages scattered across the region late yesterday evening.

No comments: