F0 tornado, Henly, Texas, November 15, 2001

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. 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.

7. 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.

Rating

F0

Date

November 15, 2001

Touchdown

9:45 AM CST (15:45 UTC)

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$50,000

County

Hays County

Touchdown point

30.100, -98.270

Lift-off point

30.120, -98.250

Record number

1149

A tornado, rated F0, moved from 8 miles south-southwest of Henley 6 miles south-southwest of Henley. As it crossed FM2325, it knocked down trees, and damaged several roofs of homes, as well as destroying some outbuildings. One injury was reported as the tornado knocked over a trailer-tractor and injured the driver.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

13 minutes of warning. NWS EWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:32 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:15 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:46 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

NWS Austin/San Antonio, TX wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Nov 15, 3:05 AM CST, 6 hours 40 minutes earlier.

SOUTH CENTRAL FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO TX
305 AM CST THU NOV 15 2001

FRIGID UPPER LOW CURRENTLY NEAR EL PASO IS STILL DRIFTING SLOWLY
SEWD...DRIVING A SERIES OF SHORT WAVES IN ADVANCE THRU SC TX.
MODELS DIFFER A BIT ON STRENGTH AND LOCATION BUT AGREE THIS LOW WILL
CONTINUE TO WOBBLE AROUND IN THE ELP AREA THRU SAT...POSSIBLY
BEGINNING TO OPEN AND LIFT OUT ON SUN.  WITH LOW LEVEL ELY FLOW
SUSTAINING MOISTURE...LITTLE WILL CHANGE THRU NEXT 48 HOURS.

FIRST TWO SHORT WAVES HAVE ALREADY CROSSED WARNING AREA. SPOTTY SVR
WX IN FORM OF HAIL AND HEAVY RAINFALL DEVELOPED UNDER STEEP LAPSE
RATES AND PRECIP WATER VALUES NEAR 1.5 INCHES IN STORMS MOVING 10-15
KTS.  RAIN TOTALS RANGED FROM 2 TO 4 INCHES OVER THE WESTERN PART OF
THE AREA WITH MAX TOTALS OF NEARLY 8 INCHES IN EXTREME SOUTH PART.
SOILS ARE SATURATED AND SOME OF THE MORE QUICKLY RESPONDING STREAMS
ARE ON THE RISE...SO FLASH FLOOD WATCH WILL CONTINUE THRU THE AFTN.
GOOD CHANCE THE WATCH WILL NEED TO BE EXTENDED IN TIME.

LOWERED POPS ON MON AND TUE AS NEXT COLD FRONT MOVES INTO AREA AND
REMOVED THE POPS FROM THE WED FORECAST.  EXPECT SOME COOLING WITH
THIS NEXT FRONT AS MINIMUM TEMPS WILL FALL INTO THE LOW 40S BY WED
MORNING OVER THE HILL COUNTRY.

MIGHT BE WORTH MENTIONING THIS IS WINTER WEATHER AWARENESS DAY IN
TEXAS...EVEN THOUGH WE MAY BE CONCENTRATING ON SOME NON-WINTER
TYPES OF WEATHER.

.PRELIM NUMBERS
AUS 72/60/70/60 9987
DRT 70/60/68/60 9987
SAT 72/62/72/62 9987

.EWX...FF WATCH ALL SECTIONS THRU 16/00Z.

09/19/23

In the hours before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO, TX
633 AM CST THU NOV 15 2001

TIME(CST)  .....CITY LOCATION.....STATE   ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

0511 AM    BOERNE                    TX   TORNADO
11/15/01   KENDALL                        ROOF TORN OFF HOUSE
                                          REPORTED BY PUBLIC

0519 AM    BOERNE                    TX   TORNADO
11/15/01   KENDALL                        SIGHTED AT FM 300 AND
                                          STATE HWY 46 WEST REPORTED
                                          BY RANCHER

AS

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.

San Marcos (Awos) (HYI), 45 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Austin/San Antonio radar (KEWX), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:42 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

22 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.