WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — Wednesday’s storm system brought a surprise to some Round Rock and Hutto area residents — a small tropical tornado touchdown.
“Damn it, as if I didn’t have enough to do,” said Kenneth Thomison, a Hutto homeowner on Will Smith Circle. “I looked out and I saw the corn husks flying in the air and noticed that my go-kart was standing there by itself, and then I realized the shed was gone.”
Thomison estimates the destroyed shed is around a $3,000 loss.
“I’m probably going to call my insurance company,” he said.
Luckily, his house was fine and he says replacing his shed won’t be an issue. Thomison says he’s just glad no one got hurt.
“It was moving pretty slow,” said Jorden Hemenway, one of several viewers who caught the brief tornado touchdown on video.
“Where is it going? Should I turn left or turn right? I’m going to wait here and see where it goes,” he recalls thinking.
He said the tornado blew over a sign and sent small plastic debris into the roadway near County Road 110 at Porano Circle, northeast of Old Settlers Park.
“This is mind blowing,” said Jorden Hemenway. “I need to take a video so people will believe me.”
Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody tweeted his department had received multiple reports of a funnel cloud near County Road 110 and Limmer Loop. Another report came from near County Road 366 and Chandler Road, Chody said.
However, not everyone was aware of the tornado. Those who were working at American Fireworks on Limmer Loop had no clue.
“I didn’t even know it was here,” said Misty Black, who operates the firework stand. “Because when it was happening every one of us had a customer and so we were looking down [and] helping people.”
It wasn’t until customers informed Black of what had just happened that she realized.
“We had a guy come in and he was like, ‘Hey, did you see that funnel over there?’ And, I said, ‘No.’ I had no idea what he was talking about,” she said.
Storms also knocked out power in the Pflugerville area. Pflugerville Police says if you are without power, contact your service provider and keep 911 open for emergencies.
Tropical funnels are not produced in the same way as larger, more violent supercell-related tornadoes. Spin in the atmosphere associated with tropical circulations create an area of vertical twisting near rain showers, usually creating only short-lived funnel formations. Unlike this small spin-up, they rarely touch the ground.
These storms are generally much less dangerous than tornadoes that form from supercells, but sometimes produce winds up to 70 mph, and cause minor damage.
by Christopher Adams, Jim Spencer, Candy Rodriguez (Posted 2018, July 4/Updated 2018, July 5) KXAN
