Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2004
F1 tornado, Maysfield, Texas, June 26, 2004
This F1 tornado ran 0.8 miles across Milam County on June 26, 2004, touching down at 6:05 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed 1 person, and did $10,000 of property damage.
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
- June 26, 2004
- Touchdown
- 6:05 PM CDT (23:05 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.8 miles (1.3 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 1
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $10,000
- County
- Milam County
- Touchdown point
- 30.900, -96.870
- Lift-off point
- 30.900, -96.880
- Record number
- 293
What the Weather Service recorded
The tornado developed at approximately 605 PM, 1 mile west of Maysfield near the intersection of FM 485 and CR 249. The tornado damaged a store near this intersection, then moved slowly west,along and just south of FM 485. The most significant damage occurred along FM 485 between CR 252and FM 979. A large corrugated metal workshop on the south side of FM 485 had the roof blown into some trees, and the walls blown down. The fatality occurred in this building. Apparently the door fell on a 72 year old man, hitting him in the head and killing him. North of FM 485 and east of FM 979, a shed was damaged.
The deaths
1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.
| Age | Sex | Where | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 72 | M | Business | Direct |
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:59 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | FWD |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:35 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.
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.
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z
11.1 hours before the tornado, 218 km from the path. June 26, 2004.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1268 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -16 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1099 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 715 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 28 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 21 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.5 K/km
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z
0.9 hours after it, 218 km from the path. June 27, 2004.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 111 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -59 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 914 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1049 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 6 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 29 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 61 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.2 K/km
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2004 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 26, 2004
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.