Storm chaser Tony Laubach reports live from Odessa, Texas, as severe storms fire up on May 5.
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00:00Multi-day severe weather and flash flood threat continues here as we head into tonight across the southern U.S.
00:05Our live coverage begins right now with Tony Laubach.
00:07He joins us live right now near Midland and Odessa in Texas.
00:12Tony, give us the latest.
00:16Well, Damian, we're currently tracking a severe storm that's developed over the last hour.
00:20We're watching the storm.
00:21It's just on the northwest side of the Odessa area,
00:25so the outer kind of beltway loop that it's sitting kind of just on the northwest side of downtown.
00:30Odessa, we've been watching this storm pretty much for the last 45 minutes as it has intensified and gone severe,
00:35currently severe worn for quarter-sized hail and 60-mile-per-hour winds.
00:40We'll show you the radar here.
00:41I want to walk you through a couple of things that we're watching here.
00:43And, Damian, if you wouldn't mind running this into motion, a couple of features I want to point out.
00:47It might be tough to see on this, and forgive me if it is,
00:50but there is a faint little line there that has been kind of pressing in from south.
00:54That is an outflow boundary from the early morning and afternoon convection
00:58and showers that have been north of this area.
01:01That is kind of the firing line for these storms.
01:04This boundary is slowly moving south.
01:06So what I'm expecting to have happen at some point here is once that boundary stalls out,
01:11that's going to be the area where you're going to be most concerned with tornadic development.
01:14Unfortunately, that's going to put that very, very close to the Midland-Odessa area
01:18and places right along the interstate.
01:20So a fairly heavily populated area for folks here in the southwest Texas area.
01:25The good news for this initial storm that we're currently tracking,
01:27we do believe that this outflow boundary has pushed just to the south of the main area of this storm,
01:34meaning this storm has likely been undercut.
01:36So I think for the time being, this particular cell has lower tornado chances,
01:40but we certainly are not going to rule anything out with the various parameters in play in this region.
01:45But I think anything north of that faint little line, anything north basically of the interstate,
01:50you get out toward Kermit, north of there, I think is primarily going to be a hail threat.
01:55I think it's going to be along and south of that line that we are going to be watching the potential for tornadoes,
02:00maybe a significant tornado if that storm stays rooted on that particular line.
02:04So that is the area we are currently watching right now.
02:08Again, we're going to kind of focus our efforts here on this particular storm.
02:11There's another storm off to the northwest across the border into New Mexico.
02:14So several areas in this immediate vicinity, certainly in the threat forest of your weather,
02:20very large hail, which has pretty much been a common theme for the last several days.
02:24That is going to continue to probably be the primary threat in the near term.
02:27And this is only going to be the first round of storms.
02:30Unfortunately, we expect another round of storms to develop later this evening.
02:34That round of storm bears watching for the potential for damaging winds, widespread damaging winds and hail.
02:39Well, those storms are likely to push east overnight.
02:43And then as we get into tomorrow morning and eventually tomorrow afternoon,
02:47those are going to be a player in the severe weather threat all the way across the state and east Texas, Damien.
02:52So expecting the next 24 hours to be very, very busy here in the Lone Star State.
02:56All right.
02:57AccuWeather meteorologist, storm chaser, and 90s movie aficionado, Tony Laubach.
03:01Thank you so much for that update.
03:02We'll check in with you here coming up.
03:04So overall, what Tony was talking about is that these storms here across West Texas,
03:09we're going to take a live look here at Sherman Denison.
03:11This is Denison, Texas, actually.
03:13And you can see, well, of course, widespread traffic construction going on right now.
03:17That's just how it is in Texas.
03:18But we're also watching out, as you can see, some wet roads out there.
03:21We'll be watching out for some showers.
03:23But the areas that Tony was talking about here north of the I-20 corridor for Midland and Odessa.
03:27So for Midland County, Hector County, and Andrews County, we are watching that boundary
03:31because depending on the orientation of these storms, how they develop along that boundary,
03:36that's what could really ramp up the low-level rotation for these particular storms.
03:41And it's that low-level rotation that is really going to increase the overall tornado threat
03:45that we will be tracking here as we head throughout this evening and as we head throughout tonight.