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More than 180,000 Fairfax County Public Schools students went home three hours early Monday as Northern Virginia prepared for a possible tornado. The tornado never developed, but severe thunderstorms later brought power outages and wider travel disruption.

FCPS announced the early dismissal Sunday evening because of the severe-weather threat. The unusual three-hour schedule surprised some students accustomed to two-hour releases.

“I was kind of confused [at the announcement] because I was more used to the traditional two-hour early release,” junior Nubaid Khan said. “So when I saw three-hour I was kind of blown off.”

The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch at 11:08 a.m. Monday, warning of a possible EF-2 tornado and wind gusts reaching 60 to 80 mph. Forecasters said the winds could topple trees and branches, trigger localized outages, and damage buildings.

The watch was canceled by 3:30 p.m., before the worst weather reached Fairfax County.

“The rain started around two to three hours after we left school,” Khan said. “The storms didn’t even actually get bad until nighttime, which is over eight hours past from that point. So in hindsight, it wasn’t really necessary.”

Sophomore Tarek Elbehiry also found the daytime weather underwhelming.

“Not necessarily as much as I would have liked to have seen,” Elbehiry said. “It was a shame [to me] there wasn’t any weather.”

Elsewhere in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia region, the storms caused more serious disruption. Tornado warnings were issued for parts of southern Maryland and Loudoun County. Reagan National Airport imposed a ground stop, and more than 200 flights were canceled amid the dangerous conditions.

At about 8:30 p.m., a severe thunderstorm warning took effect across Fairfax County. The warning lasted until 9:45 p.m., and Dominion Energy reported 4,200 power outages as of 10 p.m.

“It’s pretty bad for rain, but at the same time, it’s just rain,” Khan said. “We’re in Northern Virginia and it’s going to rain at some point.”