Tornado kills at least 4 in Matador as severe storms move through Texas
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Visible satellite image near sunset showing the storm that produced the tornado in Matador, Texas. Credit: CIRA/RAMMB
A tornado in Matador, Texas, killed at least four people and wounded 10 others Wednesday night as storms spawned multiple tornadoes across the Rolling Plains amid a record-setting extreme heat wave, authorities said.
The latest: Matador has "experienced an unprecedented tornado bringing damaging winds to the town," the Lubbock Fire Rescue agency said Thursday morning.
- Multiple buildings and vehicles were damaged by the tornado, local news KCBD 11 reported.
The big picture: The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for several counties in the region and noted the storms had unleashed large hail and wind gusts exceeding 100 mph.
- Matador Mayor Pat Smith told the New York Times the tornado caused "a whole lot of damage" in the northern Texas town of some 600 residents.
State of play: Much of the southern U.S. has been experiencing a severe heat wave, helping trigger the severe storms.
- Multiple cities in Texas have broken records during the heat wave.
- San Angelo broke its all-time record high, reaching 114°F on Tuesday afternoon while Del Rio hit an all-time record high of 113°F. Meanwhile, the high temperature in Houston reached 100°F on Monday, a month earlier than usual.
- Wind gusts in Houston reached 97 mph on Wednesday, setting a new record that surpassed levels recorded during Hurricane Ike in 2008, National Weather Service Houston confirmed, cutting power to parts of Harris county amid the punishing heat.
- The severe weather has caused power outages for 224,610 customers in Texas and 69,645 in Oklahoma as of Thursday morning, according to utility tracker poweroutage.us.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new information throughout.
