EF2 tornado, De Soto Carroll Arpt to Hutchins, Texas, April 3, 2012

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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

April 3, 2012

Touchdown

1:00 PM CDT (18:00 UTC)

Lifted

1:35 PM CDT (18:35 UTC)

On the ground

35 minutes

Path length

13.7 miles (22.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

10

Property damage

$400 million

Crop damage

$6,000

Counties

Ellis and Dallas counties

Touchdown point

32.492, -96.859

Lift-off point

32.668, -96.751

Record number

1204031200-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• everything around this is untouched.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A historic North Texas tornado outbreak occurred on April 3rd, with 17 tornadoes developing from the DFW Metroplex east to Hopkins County. An EF-3 tornado tore through the town of Forney, heavily damaging homes in the Diamond Creek subdivision. Three EF-2 tornadoes damaged parts of Arlington and Kennedale in Tarrant County; Red Oak, Lancaster, and Dallas in Ellis and Dallas counties; and Royse City in Rockwall and Hunt counties. An EF-1 tornado caused damage near Joshua in Johnson County, and the remaining 12 tornadoes were rated EF-0s. In addition to the tornadoes, large hail damaged many parts of the DFW Metroplex. Approximately 110 airplanes at DFW International Airport were damaged by the hail and taken out of service until repaired. No fatalities occurred and only 29 people were injured. Of the 29 injuries, only 3 were considered serious but everyone made a full recovery. The environmental set-up on this day consisted of a cut-off low over New Mexico with a front draped north-to-south across the western counties of the CWA. By mid to late morning, strong and severe storms developed along the front as a lobe of energy rotated into west Texas and forcing from this energy overspread the front. The atmosphere was already unstable and uncapped by this time. In addition, a Mesoscale Convective System in Oklahoma sent an outflow boundary south across the Red River. This outflow boundary moved south of the DFW Metroplex by the late morning hours, and isolated storms began to develop south of the outflow boundary but east of the front. As these storms moved north and crossed the outflow boundary, the low level rotation increased and the storms quickly became tornadic. All of the tornadic storms were tied to this outflow boundary as it retreated north as a warm front.

This tornado is a continuation from Ellis County. The tornado crossed into Dallas County near I-35E at the Ellis/Dallas County line. Light damage was noted as the tornado crossed into the county but then the tornado moved into the city of Lancaster and struck the Portofino Apartments where it damaged the roofs of two buildings and tore the roof off another building. Cars were moved in the parking lots, and the windows were blown out in one car. The tornado did significant damage to homes just northeast of the apartment complex, beginning on Sunny Meadow Dr. However, the most significant damage occurred near the intersections of Wintergreen Rd, Telephone Rd, and North Dallas Ave. Many homes in this area were heavily damaged or destroyed. Some cars were pushed into fences, many trees and tree branches were knocked down, an RV was crumpled, and some fence boards penetrated homes. The Cedar Valley Christian Academy also sustained heavy damage when it lost an entire wall. The tornado continued northeast crossing Interstate 20 near Dynasty Drive. The tornado hit a trucking company along the interstate, lofting several empty semis into the air. About 50 semitrailers were damaged or destroyed. The tornado damaged a few additional trees northeast of the trucking company and caused some minor roof damage in the Stagecoach neighborhood. The damage track ended near Palm Island St and Tioga St. In the city of Lancaster, 64 homes were destroyed, 51 sustained major damage, and another 58 sustained minor damage. An additional two homes were destroyed in the Dallas city limits. One home was destroyed when one of the semis from the trucking company was thrown into the house. The path length of the tornado in Dallas County was approximately 9.4 miles long but the total length of the tornado was 13.7 miles. Maximum estimated winds were 130 mph with a maximum width of 200 yards. Ten people in the city of Lancaster were injured, and two people sustained serious injuries.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:55 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:14 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:10 UTC and running to 22:58 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:26 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 Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 47 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:59 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 2012 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

20 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.