More than 100 homes have been damaged after a tornado touched down in a residential area outside Houston, authorities in Texas said Monday.
No injuries were reported.
Photos and drone video posted on Facebook by the Harris County Precinct 3 constable showed roofs with shingles ripped off. Some debris blocked roads.
The damage affected the Memorial Northwest neighborhood, according to the office of Mark Herman, the constable.
The Houston Fire Department dispatched five members of its saw team to cut up and remove toppled trees, spokesperson Rustin Rawlings said.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for southeastern Texas, including Houston, until 1 a.m. Tuesday. It also issued a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of southeastern Texas.
While the National Weather Service will have to survey the area to officially assign a rating for the strength of the Harris County tornado, atmospheric parameters were certainly in place for a tornadic setup.
The Houston and Harris County area was dealing with unusually warm and humid conditions for this time of year, with temperatures in the upper 70s and lower 80s for much of the afternoon, and dew points as high as the low 70s, meaning it was very muggy.
Those are two of the primary ingredients needed to produce severe weather, and the other is a lifting mechanism, which came in the form of both a warm front and a cold front moving through the state. All things combined prompted a tornado watch for the afternoon and into the overnight hours for Southeast Texas, which led to several tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings throughout the day.
Conditions are expected to improve over the next few days, followed by the return of rain and storms this weekend.
