EF0 tornado, Aspermont Arpt, Texas, April 28, 2012

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 28, 2012

Touchdown

8:45 PM CDT (01:45 UTC)

Lifted

8:47 PM CDT (01:47 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Stonewall County

Touchdown point

32.980, -100.420

Lift-off point

32.980, -100.418

Record number

1204281945-01

Early this evening, a stationary front extending from the western Permian Basin northeast to the southern Rolling Plains combined with moderate instability to create a single thunderstorm southwest of Lake Alan Henry. This slow-moving storm quickly became supercellular and over the next two hours moved easterly across southeast Garza, southern Kent and southwest Stonewall Counties. Although this supercell produced a brief EF0 tornado over open land in southwest Stonewall County near sunset, hail was the greatest threat with this storm. Copious amounts of mostly small hail were observed on the north end of Lake Alan Henry in addition to one instance of very large hail up to three inches in diameter in southwest Stonewall County. Late this night, elevated storms developed in the far southeast Texas Panhandle and produced large hail in northeast Hall County.

A storm chaser observed a tornado for about two minutes. The tornado was visible only as a rotating plume of dirt underneath a rotating cloud base. No damage survey was conducted as the tornado remained over undeveloped land.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:33 UTC and running to 06:10 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:02 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.

Sweetwater/Avenger Field Airport (SWW), 57 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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 2012 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

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.