EF0 tornado, Abernathy, Texas, March 19, 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

March 19, 2011

Touchdown

7:03 PM CDT (00:03 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hale County

Touchdown point

33.902, -101.764

Lift-off point

33.902, -101.764

Record number

1103191803-01

A series of three supercell thunderstorms impacted the central South Plains of west Texas during the late afternoon and evening hours of the 19th. The initial storm erupted near the intersection of a dryline and warm front over Hockley and Lubbock Counties shortly before 17:00 CST. This storm quickly became supercellular, and produced large hail and a brief tornado as it tracked east-northeastward over southern Hale and Floyd Counties. Additional supercells developed near the same surface features through the evening hours. One storm produced a swath of damaging hail over portions of Lubbock County, including near Shallowater where very large hail up to the size of baseballs was reported.

Skywarn storm spotters and chasers observed a brief tornado northeast of Abernathy shortly after 18:00 CST. Witnesses described a funnel cloud that extended three-quarters of the way to the ground beneath a ragged wall cloud. Dust was seen rotating on the ground beneath the visible funnel. No damage was reported.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:01 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:48 UTC and running to 04:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. 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.

Lubbock International Airport (LBB), 27 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:01 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

1 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.