Tornado hits Houston area, damaging over 100 homes, no injuries reported

More than 100 homes were damaged after a tornado touched down in a residential area outside Houston, Texas authorities said Monday.

No injuries were reported.

Drone photos and videos posted to Facebook by Harris County Precinct 3 Constable showed roofs with shingles torn off. Some debris blocked the roads.

The damage affected the Memorial Northwest neighborhood, according to Constable Mark Herman’s office.

The Houston Fire Department dispatched five members of its saw crew to cut down and remove the toppled trees, spokesman Rustin Rawlings said.

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for southeast Texas, including Houston, until 1 a.m. Tuesday. It also issued a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of southeast Texas.

While the National Weather Service will have to survey the area to officially assign a strength rating to the Harris County tornado, the atmospheric parameters were certainly in place for a tornadic configuration.

The Houston and Harris County area faced unusually hot 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.

These are two of the main ingredients needed to produce extreme weather, and the other is a lifting mechanism, which came in the form of a warm front and a cold front moving across the state. All of these things combined triggered a tornado watch for the afternoon and overnight in Southeast Texas, leading to several tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings throughout the day.

Conditions are expected to improve over the next few days, followed by the return of rain and thunderstorms this weekend.