You can easily see the funnel cloud.

This first full day of summer was quite dramatic. It started out with heat and ended with a bang as powerful storms developed much like they did on Thursday; however, the two storms were slightly different. The one Thursday was a microburst, where the winds came straight down out of the storm. Today's storm produced a funnel cloud and wind damage. Both events have a similar genesis. On Thursday, a batch of storms that formed in Oklahoma Wednesday night came rotating down through east Texas. Their remnants were energized Thursday morning by the sun and drifted into southeast Texas. At the same time, the sea-breeze was getting cranked up along the coast. Hot inland areas heat up faster than the Gulf waters, which cause a push of wind inland toward the coast. Clouds form and rise as they encounter the warmer inland air. The sea-breeze collided with the left-overs causing the microburst storm on Thursday.

Today, we had the sea-breeze, but we also had a weak cool front slipping down from the north. It wasn't a classic cold front in that there was only a wind shift along the front and slightly drier air behind the front. Temperatures were warm on either side of the front. The front touched off storms north and east of Houston that began to drift toward the south. They met up with the sea-breeze and exploded into the damaging storm. There was also a tremendous amount of lightning, side-wise falling rain and marble-sized hail with the storm.

Quite a way to start the first day of Summer. The second day could bring more afternoon storms, but they may not pack as powerful a punch as todays.

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