EF0 tornado, Hughes Spgs, Texas, April 30, 2011

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 30, 2011

Touchdown

9:24 PM CDT (02:24 UTC)

Lifted

9:32 PM CDT (02:32 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Cass County

Touchdown point

32.986, -94.641

Lift-off point

33.007, -94.604

Record number

1104302024-01

A moderately unstable warm sector developed during the late afternoon and evening hours across Northeast Texas, Southeast Oklahoma and Southwest Arkansas on April 30th. A cold front was present across this region and storms began initiating along this boundary. Shear was sufficient in the lower and mid levels of the atmosphere for a few of these storms to take on supercell characteristics. A few of these storms produced tornadoes, along with large hail and damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey in southwest Cass County and concluded that the damage was the result of an EF0 tornado. The tornado first touched down on the southwest side of Hughes Springs where several trees were snapped near FM 250. The storm then continued on a northeast trajectory downing trees onto powerlines and removing shinges from a home along FM 2984. As the storm continued to move northeast, several trees were uprooted, some large in nature, with shingles removed from a business along the east side of town. The tornado lifted just after downing 6 large pecan trees near a resident on FM 2992.|One of the large limbs from the trees punctured the back of his roof and damaged a storage building nearby. Estimated wind speeds were 75-80 mph.

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:02 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:56 UTC and running to 07:00 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 00:51 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.

Mount Pleasant Airport (OSA), 33 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:24 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 2011 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.