Scattered thunderstorms developed during the mid-afternoon along a weak cold front in the southern Texas Panhandle. A few of these storms acquired rotation along the boundary and intensified to severe levels.
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Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS LUB wrote it up.
Scattered thunderstorms developed during the mid-afternoon along a weak cold front in the southern Texas Panhandle. A few of these storms acquired rotation along the boundary and intensified to severe levels.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Lubbock, TX wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Aug 25, 2:21 PM CST, 54 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Lubbock TX 321 PM CDT THU AUG 25 2016 .SHORT TERM... At 230 pm, the cold front was located roughly from near Clovis NM to near Wellington TX. T-storm activity was beginning to increase along an axis from the northern Permian Basin into the southeast Texas Panhandle, within a broad corridor of about 2000 J/kg of MLCAPE and 25 to 35 kts of deep layer shear - supporting potential for some storm organization and a threat of severe hail and wind gusts. Water vapor imagery shows the base of the upper trough to the southwest of El Paso. As the trough slowly advances east this evening it will provide large-scale ascent while maintaining the deep-layer transport of moisture across West Texas. the front has stalled out for the most part, however we do anticipate that developing thunderstorm outflows will likely push the effective front southward some this evening. The best storm chances will be located across our northern tier of counties, with the lowest chances in the southeast - farthest removed from the forcing mechanisms. Precip. water values running around 1.2 to 1.4 inches, the focus of the front, and mean storm motion roughly aligned with the moisture transport vector suggest some potential for locally heavy downpours and training of storm cells. Thunderstorm activity may continue continue through midnight or so, especially in the vicinity of the front/outflow boundary, then begin to wind down early Friday morning - although some showers could linger into the morning hours as the weakening trough crosses the area. Friday should be warmer and drier as we see drying occur in the mid-levels. However, weak troughing will linger over the region and NWP suggests scattered convection will develop with another impulse moving into central NM - some of that activity could move into the western South Plains late in the day. .LONG TERM... Steady height rises begin Friday night and continue through the weekend as a zonal upper ridge sprawls westward over all of the southern Great Plains. Subsidence will be most prevalent over the eastern half of the CWA during this time while remaining areas enjoy comparably better lapse rates aloft and sporadic lift along the periphery of the ridge. As a result, PoPs most days through next week have been refined even further to show much lower rain chances off the Caprock. The one exception to this is Sunday which still features enhanced rain chances of 30-40% over all of the area despite some recent misgivings in QPF between the GFS and ECMWF. Even with the ridge axis firmly atop the region, models do prog a temporary uptick in PWATs as 850-700 mb winds back from SW to SE. How well this actually translates into better rain chances is fuzzy as the overall pattern would suggest much lower PoPs, but will give more of a nod to the higher Superblend values for now. Otherwise, the center of the ridge should only draw closer through midweek while serving to lower PWATs and effectively suppress additional storm chances. High temps were also bumped up even further by Tue and Wed closer to the hotter Euro MOS guidance more fitting of the pattern by that point. && .LUB Watches/Warnings/Advisories... None. && 33/93
HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK...UPDATED NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LUBBOCK TX 1134 AM CDT THU AUG 25 2016 TXZ021>044-261645- PARMER-CASTRO-SWISHER-BRISCOE-HALL-CHILDRESS-BAILEY-LAMB-HALE- FLOYD-MOTLEY-COTTLE-COCHRAN-HOCKLEY-LUBBOCK-CROSBY-DICKENS-KING- YOAKUM-TERRY-LYNN-GARZA-KENT-STONEWALL- 1134 AM CDT THU AUG 25 2016 THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR THE EXTREME SOUTHERN TEXAS PANHANDLE...SOUTH PLAINS AND ROLLING PLAINS. .DAY ONE...THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS LATER TODAY AND TONIGHT WILL BRING A RISK FOR VERY HEAVY RAINFALL RESULTING IN LOCALIZED FLOODING. IN ADDITION...A FEW STORMS ACROSS THE FAR SOUTHERN TEXAS PANHANDLE AND NORTHERN ROLLING PLAINS MAY BE SEVERE WITH LARGE HAIL TO GOLFBALL SIZE AND WING GUSTS TO 65 MPH. THIS THREAT WILL BE MAINLY ALONG AND TO THE NORTH OF HIGHWAY 70. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME. .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT... LIMITED SPOTTER ACTIVATION MAY BE REQUESTED LATER THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING.
The Altus AFB radar (KFDR), 129 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 21:16 UTC.
2 hail. Local standard time, as filed.
A storm chaser reported copious amounts of hail as large as golf ball size along Texas Highway 256. Dense fog was also observed from the hail. Damage information was not available.
The public reported quarter size hail in Happy. No damage accompanied the hail.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Texas in 2016Every state in 2016This day in weather historyWarnings in Texas, August 2016
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 645693, 645696.