EF0 tornado, Texhoma, Texas, August 14, 2013

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

August 14, 2013

Touchdown

5:45 PM CDT (22:45 UTC)

Lifted

5:48 PM CDT (22:48 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Sherman County

Touchdown point

36.340, -101.820

Lift-off point

36.340, -101.820

Record number

1308141645-01

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

• Public reported a brief/weak tornado near Highway 15. Witness accounts indicate a dust whirl associated with a rotating wall cloud. Duration 5:45-5:48 PM CDT. Width: 50 yards Length: 1 mile

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

Scattered showers and thunderstorms developed over the eastern Colorado Plains during the early afternoon hours of the 14th. These storms formed along a stalled frontal boundary that had moved across the Southern Plains the previous day. A strengthening jet streak moving across western Kansas provided the large scale forcing needed to initiate storms along the stalled front. After a brief track east of the front the storms turned to the right and began moving due south. As they moved southward one of the storms became a dominate supercell among a couple weaker storms and intensified significantly as it moved across the Oklahoma Panhandle. This supercell ingested weaker storms as it moved southward which allowed it to sustain a discrete appearance as it moved into the northern Texas Panhandle. While over the northern Texas Panhandle, this supercell produced two brief tornadoes over undeveloped land. As this storm moved across the central and southern Texas Panhandle, the storm structure took on a more multi-cell linear appearance. These storms moved quickly south of the Texas Panhandle by 9 PM CST.

At 4:45 PM CST, a brief and weak tornado was observed by the public 14 miles east of Stratford near Texas Highway 15 (Sherman County). Witnesses accounts indicate the tornado appeared as a dust whirl associated with a rotating wall cloud. The tornado remained over open country for three minutes and resulted in no damage. The maximum wind speed for this tornado was 65 mph.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:43 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:19 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 19:54 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 Amarillo radar (KAMA), 123 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:46 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 2013 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.