EF2 tornado, Kennedale to Arlington Pylon Arpt, 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

1:21 PM CDT (18:21 UTC)

Lifted

1:40 PM CDT (18:40 UTC)

On the ground

19 minutes

Path length

6.4 miles (10.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

7

Property damage

$200 million

County

Tarrant County

Touchdown point

32.631, -97.219

Lift-off point

32.709, -97.200

Record number

1204031221-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

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.

An EF-2 tornado began in Kennedale, and then moved north-northeast into Arlington. In its occlusion phase, the tornado curved back to the northwest; ending its track near the east shores of Lake Arlington along Waterview Drive. The path length of the tornado was 6.4 miles long with a width of approximately 150 yards. Damage from the tornado began near the Texas Raceway. Five manufactured homes were heavily damaged or destroyed near the racing strip. Moving to the north-northeast, the tornado produced sporadic damage to trees, power poles, and a storage facility as the storm organized rapidly. Part of the roof of a warehouse at a business on Tower Drive near Business 287 was torn off and tossed onto a city water tower nearby. The warehouse was also damaged by debris tossed by the tornado. Other businesses near this intersection were also damaged. Damage to residences began north of Sublett Rd. EF-2 damage was noted to a few homes between Sublett Rd and Hwy 287, but most areas received EF-0 or EF-1 damage. Approximately 143 homes and apartments sustained some type of damage in this area. Most of the homes appeared to have the initial failure at or near the garage, with subsequent damage coming to exterior walls or portions of roofs. Before the tornado crossed Hwy 287, it damaged the roofs of two buildings at the Chesterfield Apartments. Once the tornado crossed Hwy 287, it cut a path to the north-northeast causing mostly minor roof and fence damage to approximately 25-30 homes between Hwy 287 and Interstate 20. The tornado crossed Interstate 20 between Kelly Elliott Rd and Green Oaks Blvd. First the tornado damaged a church on the north side of the interstate, then the tornado went on to do significant damage in the Oldfield neighborhood just north of Interstate 20 near Martin High School. Approximately 100 homes were damaged in this neighborhood with an additional 85 damaged in the surrounding areas. Several homes experienced significant damage to garages and progressive failure of garage walls and portions of roofs. A few residences in this neighborhood along Haverford Dr and Thorncliffe Dr sustained EF-2 damage. Large trees were also uprooted in the neighborhood. The damage path continued to the north from this area with several other homes and trees sustaining damage near Little Road. Just west of Martin High School, the tornado began to occlude and turn northwest. At this point, near Green Oaks Boulevard and Chaperito Street, a nursing home suffered significant roof and outside wall damage, with the initial failure occurring near a large window. Nearly all of the residential damage in Kennedale and Arlington was EF-0 or EF-1. Only a small portion of the damage path suffered EF-2 damage. A total of 5 homes in Kennedale and 13 homes in Arlington were determined to be destroyed. Another 44 homes sustained major damage and 247 sustained minor damage. An additional 273 residences were affected by the storms on this day. Maximum estimated winds with the tornado were 135 mph. Eight people sustained injuries from the tornado, but only one of those injured was considered severe.

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

37 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:44 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:10 UTC and running to 20:45 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 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), 14 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:22 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.