Denton County

Severe storms leave hail, tornado damage in North Texas

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Thursday's storms left their mark on North Texas.

β€œI was leaving work, and I'd been watching the radar all day," said Christopher Reddick.

Around 6 p.m., he decided to shoot a drone timelapse video from the Keller parking lot, looking north toward Roanoke. He thought of his wife.

β€œMy concern was watching that supercell. I was afraid for her having to head north," he said.

Luckily, she made it home safely-- but the storm brought plenty of hail to the north, in Denton County.

β€œIt was like a heavy downpour of golf balls coming down," said Geoff Gray, a homeowner in Little Elm.

He said he first noticed the hail bouncing off his neighbor's home and hitting his window. Minutes later, the downpour began.

β€œNever been through anything like it before," Gray said. "It was coming down real heavy, it was real loud in the house."

But he was spared a lot of the damage his neighbors experienced, he said: Some with home and car windows busted, including his next-door neighbor.

Jennifer Dunn with the National Weather Service Fort Worth said they saw this video evidence of a twister from a neighbor on X on Thursday.

She and another NWS member came out to UNT's Frisco campus on Friday to gather data.

The NWS confirmed it was an EF-0 tornado, with winds up to 85 mph. They said the total path was less than a quarter mile.

"It appears that the damage was pretty much confined to right here on the campus and then at the park across the street, so thankfully nothing worse than that," Dunn said.

She said the tornado turned over and moved a car, damaged some signs on campus, then jumped across the street and ripped up some small trees.

Dunn said luckily, no injuries were reported as we enter into peak severe weather season.

She reminds people to stay weather aware by following meteorologists and having multiple alert sources.

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