F2 tornado, Clairemont, Texas, June 12, 2005

1. F040 to 72 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

F2

Date

June 12, 2005

Touchdown

6:04 PM CDT (23:04 UTC)

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

1,200 yards (1097 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

County

Kent County

Touchdown point

33.250, -100.650

Lift-off point

33.230, -100.680

Record number

1030

The National Weather Service in Lubbock, TX conducted a damage survey in Kent County, approximately 8 miles to the northeast of Clairemont. In collaboration with the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, CO and Texas Tech University meteorologists assessing the tornadoes across the county with Doppler-On-Wheels (DOW) data, a better understanding of the wind fields and tornado timing was achieved. The area of assessed damage was bounded by a triangle comprised of FM2320 to the south, FM1228 to the east, and CR112 to the west. There was a damage path characterized by tree damage across the zone. The path of the damage was oriented from a northeast-east to southwest-west direction. DOW data confirmed the large, wedge tornado initially propagated to the east and northeast, became nearly stationary, then rotate southward around the west side of the parent mesocyclone. The tornado moved to the southwest, then south and crossed FM1228 from the north/northeast to the south/southwest. The path of the tornado was between 0.6 to 0.7 miles wide. In assessing the damage, a circulatory patter was evident in a wheat field owned by a private farmer, with all of the wheat laying down to the south. Along this quadrant of the circulation, large farm equipment (tractors and cotton trailers) were tossed and mangled. An 80,000 lb box car was shaken by the tornado and the associated strong wind but was not moved from its location, however the contents inside were disturbed. The farm vehicles were tossed briefly a few times as there were scar marks and impact marks in the field as the equipment was blown to the south. The front-end of one tractor was snapped off after the second impact with the ground, as the vehicle was likely too heavy to remain airborne and was dragged and rolled by the tornadic wind and circulation. On the east side of the circulation, there were tree branches not grown in that immediate area that were stripped clean of bark. A cotton trailer (lighter than the other equipment) was lifted from its original location and was tossed to the north and mangled upon impact. The equipment was tossed approximately 3/10 of a mile within the circulation. It was evident from the damage pattern and debris, the circulation was multi-vortex in nature. The DOW measured wind speeds ranging from 45, 65 and 90 meters per second at various stages of the tornado life cycle at heights between 3 and 50 meters above ground level.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:38 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 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.

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:03 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2005 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

13 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.