DALLAS -- What a meteorologist called a supercell thunderstorm passed across North Texas early Friday morning, damaging homes with strong winds and hail the size of softballs.

National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Shoemaker said the system was caused by a volatile mixture of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold, dense air from up north.

A Denton County family woke up early Friday morning when strong winds blew in the windows of their upstairs bedrooms and tore part of their roof off their home. Jill Delaney of Denton told Dallas TV station WFAA that the back half of her home's roof ended up in her family's front yard.

She told the Associated Press that the corner of her house was crush like a tin can and that half a dozen large trees in the family's yard were felled by the wind.

In Wise County, emergency dispatchers received two reports of damaged homes. A Wise County emergency dispatcher said one home had windows shattered because of hail and the other had its windows blow in by straight-line winds.

The dispatcher said there was hail the size of baseballs out at Decatur Airport and softball-sized hail at the sheriff's department.