Strong storms rolled through Central Texas Thursday evening, dropping heavy rain, kicking up gusty winds and knocking out power to roughly 7,000 Austin Energy customers before crews worked through the night to bring that number down. By 9:10 p.m., outages had fallen to 1,085 customers, according to the utility’s outage map. Viewers across the region also sent in photos and video showing downed tree branches, wind damage and at least one striking weather phenomenon spinning across the Hill Country sky.
The storms moved across parts of Central Texas on Thursday, and viewers shared images capturing the action as it unfolded, according to KXAN Austin. In South Austin, a photo credited to Beth Ann Cole showed tree branches that had fallen amid the gusty winds. Near Dripping Springs, a photo credited to Caitlin Nash captured what appeared to be a gustnado tearing across the landscape, a sight dramatic enough to send residents reaching for their phones.
That kind of whirlwind looks alarming on video, but meteorologists classify it differently than the tornadoes it resembles. A gustnado is a small, short-lived whirlwind that forms along a thunderstorm’s outflow boundary at ground level rather than connecting to rotation at the base of a cloud, according to the National Weather Service. The spinning columns can still produce winds between 65 and 85 mph, comparable to an EF0 tornado, but NOAA categorizes them as thunderstorm wind events rather than true tornadoes.
A Break From Weeks of Dry Heat
Thursday’s storms arrived on the heels of a Heat Advisory that had warned of highs up to 104 degrees and heat index values nearing 110, conditions the National Weather Service had flagged just hours before the rain moved in. The shift came as a cold front pushed south into Central Texas and collided with earlier storm outflow boundaries and a mid-level disturbance tracking in from the Trans-Pecos region, a combination NWS forecast discussions described as the area’s best rain chance in weeks…