EF0 tornado, Cross Rds to Stewart, Texas, February 18, 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

February 18, 2013

Touchdown

5:27 PM CST (23:27 UTC)

Lifted

5:31 PM CST (23:31 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Rusk County

Touchdown point

32.305, -94.664

Lift-off point

32.306, -94.637

Record number

1302181727-02

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.

• Tops snapped out of several pine trees
• Several large oak and cedar limbs snapped
• Tops snapped out of several pine trees; large limbs down

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

A warm and unstable airmass developed across the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley during the day as an ejecting upper trough moved into the Plains. A strong cold front moved out of Southern Oklahoma and North Texas during the day with a very strong pressure gradient ahead of the cold front. Strong gradient winds from the south approached 40 mph across many locations with the ambient temperature reaching 70 degrees. Deep layer shear in the lowest 6 kilometers were in excess of 50kts with strong low level shear noted as well. Combine that with excessive atmospheric lapse rates and all the ingredients were present for strong to severe thunderstorms that produced large hail, damaging wind gusts and isolated tornadoes.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey and determined that a weak EF0 tornado touched down 7 miles southeast of Kilgore, Texas. Damage consisted of |several large branches and a hardwood tree snapped along County Roads 281 and 283.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey and concluded that a brief tornado touched down and snapped the tops out of several pine trees along Hwy. 322 near Barnes Creek.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey and determined that a weak EF0 tornado touched down west of Tatum, Texas. Damage consisted of a pine tree |uprooted along with several tops of pine trees snapped along County Road 2126 and FM 782.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:13 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:25 UTC and running to 01:14 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 19:43 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 78 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:27 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

17 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.