Severe summer thunderstorms bring damaging high winds to Paris & surrounding areas

Posted on Aug 6, 2012 in Weather by Josh Allen

Although the chance for rainy weather was slim on Monday — only 30%– at around 6:30pm it appeared the chances were certain.  Ominous clouds rolled over the area; all that they usually bring came with them.

What looked to be the usual summer thunderstorm — a quick pop-up storm that moves and dies quickly — turned unusually fierce for a short time.  These storms are rarely severe.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued by the National Weather Service for areas of Choctaw County in the early evening.  By 6:45pm, a storm packing high winds, quarter sized hail, and high counts of ‘cloud to ground’ lightning, moving south-southeast at around 20mph, had ramped up rather suddenly.  It was headed south and shortly following that warning, another was cast for areas in Lamar County, including Paris and surrounding communities.

The storm moved through quickly and dropped quite a bit of rain, unleashing high winds, and quarter-sized hail in some places.  The north eastern and eastern portions of Paris took the hardest hit.  Many trees were down along Pine Mill Road, including one large tree that had been broken and thrown into a house.  Power outages were reported in eastern Paris and into Reno as well.

Monica and Eddie Clement’s trampoline was hurled into a nearby tree at their house on Smallwood Road, mangling it (Pictured Left).  A driveway in Johnson Woods was completely covered with a destroyed tree (Shown in gallery below).

Needless to say, the rain was much needed, and for a moment, it cooled things off a bit.  However, this doesn’t mean that we are going to have cooler temperatures.  The heat is still here and doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon.  The chances of precipitation, however, seem to be lessening.  The chances tomorrow are only at ten percent.  The high is set at 103 degrees on Tuesday and 100 degrees on Wednesday.

Below is a photo gallery of Monday evening’s storm rolling over the courthouse downtown and some damage that it unleashed around town.  Click to Enlarge.