EF0 tornado, Sweet Home, Texas, September 29, 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

September 29, 2012

Touchdown

5:02 PM CDT (22:02 UTC)

Lifted

5:04 PM CDT (22:04 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Lavaca County

Touchdown point

29.338, -97.066

Lift-off point

29.347, -97.069

Record number

1209291602-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS EWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• Tornado began on FM 531 and traveled NW toward the Sweet Home ISD. Tree damage was observed at this location.
• Video showed a small tornado crossing the Sweet Home ISD school playground causing damage to a play tube and swing set.
• Tree damage was observed just passed County Road 378.

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

The remnants of Pacific Hurricane Miriam moved across northern Mexico into Texas and combined with low level Gulf moisture to produce widespread showers and thunderstorms. This resulted in flash flooding, one thunderstorm that produced damaging wind gusts, and another that produced a tornado.

A small EF-0 tornado was seen on video from a school campus in Sweet Home. The survey concluded that the small tornado began just down the road from the school on FM 531 and then traveled northwest hitting the school playground area at approximately 5:02 PM. The video showed the small tornado moving through the playground damaging the playground and the school gymnasium door. The tornado then moved northwest behind the school and into an open field behind a nearby church. The tornado crossed County Road 378 and produced some minor tree damage before dissipating near FM 318. Special thanks go out to Sweet Home Independent School District and KSAT-12 TV in San Antonio for providing information and video of this tornado event.

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.

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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 Austin/San Antonio radar (KEWX), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:02 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

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.