Which Texas county has the worst weather? The answer is closer to home than you think
Tarrant County has the worst weather in all of Texas based on the number of extreme weather events occurring in the area, says Stacker.com, a digital data journalism outlet.
“The cost of damage to cars, buildings, and crops from U.S. hailstorms averages about $15 billion a year, compared with about $1.2 billion in the 1990s,” the report states. “One reason for the higher price tag is the development in regions prone to hail storms like Tarrant County, Texas, where Ft. Worth is located.”
From 2010 to 2020, the county endured 576 severe weather events, averaging 52.4 per year. Hail was the most frequent severe weather event at 29.6 annually, followed by thunderstorm winds at 25.6 times a year then flash flooding at six times annually. Stacker used severe weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Tarrant County residents are no strangers to destructive severe weather. One of the costliest hail storms in history struck Dallas-Fort Worth in May 1995. The Mayfest storm, producing extremely large hail up to the size of softballs (4 in), damaging winds and heavy rainfall, caused an estimated $2 billion in damages in Tarrant and Dallas counties. The storms struck over 10,000 people at the Fort Worth Mayfest, the annual outdoor festival in Trinity Park.
In March 2016, damaging winds, hail and a tornado created around $2.3 billion in damages in North Central Texas. Tarrant County was placed under a state of disaster during the freeze of February 2021 that killed 246 people statewide. Most recently, in late April this year, hailstones up to the size of grapefruits (4.5 in) hit North Texas.
