Severe Storms Target Dallas–Fort Worth Overnight: 60-Mile-an-Hour Winds and Quarter Hail Ahead of Election Day
The system that flooded the Southwest reaches North Texas tonight — storms by 10 p.m. on the I-35 corridor, out by the morning commute, with eastern voters the ones most likely to meet rain at the polls.
Monday in Dallas–Fort Worth starts clear and calm — 65.8 degrees on the station feed, feeling like 69 — and it does not end that way. FOX 4's meteorologists report that a weather system which caused historic flooding across the Southwest is heading toward North Texas, with storms beginning to develop to the north and west between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. this evening and moving closer to the I-35 corridor by 10 p.m. The primary threat is damaging wind gusts up to 60 miles an hour — force FOX 4 notes can do damage similar to a weak tornado — with large hail up to the size of quarters and localized flooding also possible.
The timing is the story's mercy and its warning. The rain is expected to move out of the immediate Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex by the early-morning commute at 4 a.m., and behind the cold front temperatures fall from a high of 85 today, on FOX 4's reading, to about 73, with strong northwest winds up to 25 mph drying the region quickly. The station's own feed tells the same week in its own figures: a Monday high of 82.5 with a 29 percent rain chance, Election Day coded as rain showers at 61 percent — eased slightly from the 63 percent in this desk's 05:04 file — with a high of 75 and a low of 59.6. Where the two readings meet is the overnight window: the Metroplex's rain is a Monday-night event, not a Tuesday one.
For Election Day itself, the exposure is geographic. Voters in eastern and southeastern counties, stretching into East Texas, may still see rain when the polls open at 7 a.m., FOX 4 reports, and eastern voters might consider waiting until the afternoon, when the region will have dried out. The rest of the week, on both readings, is seasonal and comfortable — highs in the 70s, mostly rain-free apart from a low rain chance along the Red River on Thursday. The practical order for Monday is simple: finish the evening's errands before the storms build, secure what 60-mile-an-hour wind can move, and expect a dry, windy, cooler Tuesday at the polls.
