More than 500 flights were scrubbed and nearly 700 others pushed back at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Tuesday, as powerful storms swept across Texas amid forecasts for heavy rainfall through the end of the week, according to The New York Times.
A ground delay issued by the Federal Aviation Administration created waits of nearly three hours for planes arriving and departing the airport, with the restriction scheduled to lift just before 11 p.m. Central time, according to The Times.
Flood warnings blanketed the region stretching from the Dallas-Fort Worth area east through Shreveport, La., on Tuesday afternoon. Dallas County had already received as much as 1.5 inches of rain by 4 p.m., the National Weather Service reported, according to The Times. To the south, forecasters cautioned that certain areas near Austin could accumulate three to five inches before midnight.
Until 1 a.m. local time, a severe thunderstorm watch remained active for Central Texas and the Austin area, according to CBS News. Meteorologists cited large hail and destructive wind gusts as the top hazards, alongside a limited risk of tornadoes.
The unsettled pattern is forecast to persist through the week. Forecasters warned that between Wednesday and Friday, at least another inch of rain was likely across North and Central Texas, with the highest flash flooding risk concentrated in the central part of the state, according to The Times. Each additional round of precipitation raises the danger if it strikes ground already saturated by earlier storms, though officials cautioned Tuesday that pinpointing the hardest-hit areas was still not possible.
With the front expected to stall, rain and thunderstorms are likely to persist into Wednesday, according to CBS News. As precipitation builds up over successive days, flooding could overtake severe weather as the primary concern heading into the latter part of the week.