4 hail, as filed by the National Weather Service.
Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 212 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 19:33 UTC.
4 hail. Local standard time, as filed.
Thunderstorms developed in the higher terrain of the Davis Mountains and became multicell severe, dropping hail at the McDonald Observatory.
The storm cluster that produced hail in Jeff Davis County moved slowly to the east and dropped more hail near Fort Stockton. The storms dissipated east of Fort Stockton.
A hail storm hit the Village Farms Tomato Greenhouse south of Fort Davis. The huge greenhouses total over 83,000 glass panes, but luckily only 500 panes were broken by the hail. Much of the hail was around golfball size, but there was some baseball size. This storm developed after the first cluster had moved away from the mountains. Its structure was only impressive for a short time as it moved over this area.
Multicell storms that formed in Delaware Mountains in Culberson County had a severe cell west of Toyah as they moved eastward into richer moisture.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Texas in 1997Every state in 1997This day in weather historyWarnings in Texas, May 1997
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5611395, 5611397, 5611396, 5611398.