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Thunderstorms, possible hail tonight before cooler temperatures into Halloween weekend

Tonights thunderstorm could bring hail to Austin, the National Weather Service reports. (Shutterstock)
It's shaping up to be a cooler trick-or-treating weekend after stormy weather passes through Austin.
Winds will pick up Tuesday night and in the early hours of Wednesday with a 90% chance of rain by 4 a.m. in Austin. Up to half an inch of rainfall is expected through Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service reports the thunderstorm could be severe with possible hail.
Come Wednesday night, temperatures will drop to 55 degrees, sustaining cooler weather through the weekend nights.
A cold front will bring decent rain chances to the area. Some of the storms could be strong to severe with the main threats being wind and hail. Highest rain totals will be to the north. Dry air behind the front will lead to critical fire weather conditions Wed for western areas. pic.twitter.com/8vx8GnefQL
— NWS Austin/San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio) October 26, 2021
Clear and sunny skies are expected the rest of the week with highs teetering in the high 70s, but not past 80 degrees.
The cooler weather comes after warm weather has broken some records for this time of year.
It'll be a warm one folks. Here's the October 25th records and current forecast high temperatures:
Austin Bergstrom: 92 in 1950, forecast 91
Austin Camp Mabry: 91 in 1992, forecast 93
Del Rio: 99 in 2010, forecast 95
San Antonio: 91 in 2010, forecast 92
— NWS Austin/San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio) October 25, 2021
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A $6,000 cockatoo named Lemon Grab was stolen from a pet store Sunday afternoon, owner Kelsey Fernandez said. (Kelsey Fernandez)
A big-money bird has been stolen from a northwest Austin pet store.
Kelsey Fernandez, the owner of a $6,000 sulphur and citron-crested cockatoo named Lemon Grab, said the emotional support animal was taken from the Gallery of Pets store, around closing time on Sunday.
"I've struggled with mental illness my entire life, and ever since I got him I've been doing so much better," Fernandez told Austonia.
The $6k cockatoo is young and will starve unless he is fed by hand, Fernandez said.
In a surveillance video, a man appears to have something under his shirt as he and two others exit the business around the same time the store believes that Lemon Grab was stolen.
Fernandez said a report has been filed with the Austin Police Department with an $1,000 reward for his return.
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(Pexels)
Introverts and personal space lovers may not want to make the move to Austin anytime soon: The Texas capital saw a bigger increase in one-bedroom rent prices than almost any other U.S. city in April, according to a Rent.com report.
Austin's one-bedroom rent has more than doubled—a 112% increase—from April 2021 to 2022, the report said. Only Oklahoma City saw a higher year-over-year increase with a 133% jump.
Austin also had the fourth-highest increase in two-bedroom rent, with a 50% increase in the past year. The city joined a nationwide trend where rents were up 8.3% year-over-year across the U.S, a trend exacerbated by a 6.2% increase in inflation in the same time period.
But "not everyone is experiencing inflation the same way," Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr said in the report, and a brunt of the load has gone to cities with more move-ins. While over 90% of state rental markets increased in the last year, that jump was seen most in Sun Belt states, including Texas, Arizona and Florida.
Even with breakneck increases in rent, however, Austin's rent prices still haven't cracked the top 10: the city's one-bedroom apartments are the 12th most expensive in the nation with an average price of $2,918. Meanwhile, its two-bedrooms fall behind Texas cities Frisco, Dallas and Plano and come out 34th on the list with a $2,302 average monthly rent.
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