A body was found Wednesday morning in Lake Pflugerville near where a kayaker was washed away during a severe thunderstorm Sunday, Pflugerville city officials said.

The Travis County sheriff's office dive team spotted the body in the water at 6:23 a.m. and brought it ashore, officials said. Authorities have not confirmed it is the missing kayaker and are awaiting positive identification by the Travis County medical examiner's office, which could take time.

Pflugerville police reported that at 6:46 p.m. Sunday a woman in her 20s was kayaking on the lake and was carried into deeper water as a severe thunderstorm blew through the area. It had been a beautiful day until the dark clouds swept into the region in the evening, bringing hail and high winds and even a weak tornado in Liberty Hill.

Tina Thieme, who has lived along Lake Pflugerville for 10 years, said it was dark and overcast for about two hours Sunday evening before the storm moved through.

"All of a sudden the temperature dropped, and the wind got really strong," she told the American-Statesman on Wednesday. "The rain was coming down really hard, and the wind was very strong. We saw all of the people at the lake run towards the pavilion to take cover."

Thieme said rescue workers arrived at the scene quickly and closed the lake. She and her husband sat on their back porch until dark, when the Central Texas law enforcement agencies that had flooded the scene called off their search and went into a recovery mission to find the woman's body.

A family member told KXAN-TV that a man in the kayak made it safely to shore but his wife did not. Authorities said they believe the kayak blew away in the storm. On Wednesday, it had not been recovered.

The lake and the surrounding trail, which had been closed for two days during the search, were reopened at noon Wednesday.

Pflugerville police said the drowning is the first in Lake Pflugerville this summer and the fourth since the lake was created in 2006. Last summer, 23-year-old Cesar Rafael Peña Villastrigo died after going under the water about 50 feet from the lake's north shore entrance. He was found two days after being reported missing.