Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Tuesday as storms hit the region, part of heavy rains expected to pummel much of Texas all week.
As of Tuesday night, more than 500 inbound and outbound flights had been canceled at the airport, according to FlightAware, a tracking service. Nearly 700 flights were delayed.
The Federal Aviation Administration put in place a ground delay as a precaution, slowing arrivals and departures by nearly three hours, according to the agency’s website. The delay remains in effect until just before 11 p.m. Central time.
Flash flood warnings dotted the areas around Dallas and Fort Worth on Tuesday afternoon and reached east to Shreveport, La., as the storms moved through. A severe thunderstorm watch — how meteorologists warn the public that storms would be capable of producing heavy rain, as well as damaging winds and large hail — was in place over Central Texas, including Austin, until 1 a.m. local time.
By 4 p.m. local time, the National Weather Service reported up to 1.5 inches of rain had already fallen in Dallas County, and more was on the way. Farther south, the Weather Service office in Austin warned that some areas could record between three and five inches of rain by late Tuesday night.
Forecasters expect heavy rain across Texas for the rest of the week. The Weather Service office covering Fort Worth and Dallas warned that North and Central Texas were likely to record at least an additional inch of rain between Wednesday and Friday, and that the greatest chance for flash flooding was in Central Texas.
As each of the next few days drops additional rain, forecasters said, the chances for flooding would increase if that rain fell over the same areas. But as of Tuesday, they said it was too early to predict where, exactly, the heaviest rain would fall.
Rylee Kirk contributed reporting.
