EF0 tornado, South Plains to Dougherty, Texas, April 29, 2009

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF0

Date

April 29, 2009

Touchdown

6:58 PM CDT (23:58 UTC)

Lifted

7:03 PM CDT (00:03 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.8 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Floyd County

Touchdown point

34.080, -101.120

Lift-off point

34.060, -101.100

Record number

0904291758-01

An active severe weather event evolved over the west Texas South Plains region during the afternoon and evening hours of the 29th. Overnight convection over the Southern Plains resulted in a complex surface weather pattern through the day on the 29th. Thunderstorms initiated shortly after midday along an outflow boundary over the northern Permian Basin and southern South Plains. One of these storms produced large hail in Stonewall County during the early afternoon.||More significant severe storms developed during the late afternoon hours, as convection initiated along another pre-existing outflow boundary and its intersecting triple point with a dryline. These storms developed in a very unstable airmass, and low-level wind shear along and north of the outflow boundary was sufficient to promote tornado development. Supercell thunderstorms that developed near this boundary began to produce tornadoes and very large hail over the northeastern South Plains and the extreme southeastern Panhandle shortly after 15:00 CST. While several of the tornadoes were relatively long-lived and appeared to be capable of significant damage, they remained over open range land. Only a single instance of tornado damage occurred, when an EF-1 tornado downed wooden utility poles along Farm to Market Road 97 near Cedar Hill in northeastern Floyd County. ||The most significant public impacts from these storms occurred in Paducah (Cottle County), where a massive high-precipitation supercell produced very strong winds and wind-driven hail that damaged vehicles, light structures, trees, and utilities. No injuries were reported.

Storm chasers documented a satellite tornado which accompanied a cone-shaped and long-lived tornado near Cedar Hill in northeastern Floyd County around 19:20 CST. The small satellite tornado remained in open range land southeast of Farm to Market Road 97 and resulted in no damages.

Several storm chasers photographed a large tornado in extreme eastern Floyd County around 18:00 CST. The tornado remained in desolate range land just above the Caprock Escarpment and southeast of Farm to Market Road 97, immediately west of the Floyd and Motley County line. Video provided by storm chasers suggest that the tornado moved east-southeastward for approximately five minutes before roping out and dissipating. Local authorities reported no damage in the area. A National Weather Service post-storm survey revealed that this large and potentially significant tornado struck inaccessible areas void of roads.

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

12 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:46 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:59 UTC and running to 03:06 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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.

Plainview (PVW), 57 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:56 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 2009 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.