Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 1972
F1 tornado, Liberty County, Texas, March 20, 1972
This F1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Liberty County on March 20, 1972, touching down at 8:20 PM CST and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 2.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mph
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- F1
- Date
- March 20, 1972
- Touchdown
- 8:20 PM CST (02:20 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 2
- County
- Liberty County
- Touchdown point
- 30.050, -95.080
- Record number
- 76
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 00:00Z
2.3 hours before the tornado, 181 km from the path. March 21, 1972.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 292 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -33 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1330 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 803 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.4 K/km
Lake Charles Mun, LA (KLCH), 12:00Z
9.7 hours after it, 181 km from the path. March 21, 1972.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 25 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -170 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 49 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1169 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The surface observations
Houston Intercontinental (IAH), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01:00 UTC | 64 | 62 | 30° 6 kt | TS SHRA | ||
| 02:00 UTC | 64 | 62 | 150° 3 kt | 1011.9 | TS SHRA | |
| 03:00 UTC | 63 | 61 | 180° 8 kt | 1011.5 | -TSRA | |
| 04:00 UTC | 63 | 61 | 280° 3 kt |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1972 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 20, 1972
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 20 | 2:00 PM CST | F1 | Matagorda, TX | 0.1 | 10 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| March 20 | 3:00 PM CST | F1 | Lavaca, TX | 0.2 | 20 | $500 to $5,000 | ||
| March 20 | 3:00 PM CST | F1 | Harris, TX | 0.1 | 10 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| March 20 | 3:15 PM CST | F2 | Wharton, TX | 0.5 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| March 20 | 3:35 PM CST | F1 | Fort Bend, TX | 18.9 | 100 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| March 20 | 4:30 PM CST | F2 | Lavaca, TX | 4.5 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| March 20 | 5:00 PM CST | F1 | Harris, TX | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| March 20 | 6:45 PM CST | F0 | Harris, TX | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| March 20 | 8:20 PM CST | F0 | Liberty, TX | 0.2 | 10 | |||
| March 20 | 9:15 PM CST | F1 | Matagorda, TX | 0.1 | 10 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| March 20 | 9:55 PM CST | F2 | Cameron Parish, LA | 0.3 | 50 | $5,000 to $50,000 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.