EF1 tornado, Gillburg, Texas, August 18, 2009

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

August 18, 2009

Touchdown

1:57 PM CDT (18:57 UTC)

Lifted

2:00 PM CDT (19:00 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

10

Property damage

$20 million

County

Jefferson County

Touchdown point

30.120, -94.173

Lift-off point

30.125, -94.158

Record number

0908181257-01

Scattered thunderstorms developed during the morning and afternoon hours across southeast Texas. One of these thunderstorms moving across the northern portions of Beaumont spawned an EF1 tornado which struck the Parkdale Mall area.

An EF1 Tornado touched down just west of the Kohls Department Store in the Parkdale Mall area. The tornado struck the Kohls, tearing off part of its roof and collapsing the front entrance. Damage to the store forced it to close for several weeks. The tornado continued to the northeast and crossed a Walmart parking lot, flipping over four vehicles and damaging dozens of others. Further to the northeast, the tornado struck Parkdale Mall, damaging the roofs of several department stores. The tornado lifted in the east parking lot of Parkdale Mall before reaching Highway 69. |Numerous photographs and videos of the tornado were taken.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 16:32 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 Lake Charles radar (KLCH), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:02 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

3 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.