Severe Storms Sweep Texas, Oklahoma; Flooding, Outages

A large, multi-day storm system swept across Texas into Oklahoma, bringing heavy rain, damaging straight-line winds and very large hail — forecasters warned hail up to 2.5 inches and gusts around 60–80 mph, with isolated tornadoes possible. The outbreak left more than 150,000 Houston-area customers without power overnight, flooded portions of I‑45, and prompted CenterPoint to mobilize crews and report major restorations by mid-morning. The National Weather Service and the Storm Prediction Center issued flood watches, severe-thunderstorm watches and tornado warnings across much of Texas and Oklahoma — including Level 2/5 risk areas and tornado‑warned cells — and advisories warned that more than 1.5 million people could be affected. Radar showed the system stretching from Texas into Nebraska and producing severe impacts in Dallas‑Fort Worth, Del Rio and West/Central Texas (including warnings near Brewster County/Big Bend); observers also filmed a funnel cloud in southwestern Oklahoma during a tornado warning. Conditions were expected to begin improving by Saturday afternoon; separately, a strong fall atmospheric river hit the Pacific Northwest, bringing heavy rain to Portland and high‑wind warnings for the Oregon coast.