Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2013

EF0 tornado, Knippa, Texas, June 14, 2013

This EF0 tornado ran 1.9 miles across Uvalde County on June 14, 2013, touching down at 9:50 AM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $25,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
June 14, 2013
Touchdown
9:50 AM CDT (14:50 UTC)
Lifted
9:51 AM CDT (14:51 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
1.9 miles (3.1 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$25,000
County
Uvalde County
Touchdown point
29.330, -99.730
Lift-off point
29.351, -99.750
Record number
1306140850-01

What the Weather Service recorded

An upper level low pressure center over northern Mexico combined with a very moist air mass over South Central Texas to cause showers and thunderstorms. Some of these storms produced very heavy rain that led to flash flooding in western parts of the area.

A brief tornado produced some tree and roof damage. Winds were estimated to be 85 mph at the peak of the tornado.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
12:00 UTC02:42 UTCFlash Flood WatchEWX
15:41 UTC16:02 UTCTornado WarningEWX
19:00 UTC00:00 UTCFlash Flood WarningEWX
04:18 UTC08:00 UTCFlood AdvisoryEWX

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:46 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 air that afternoon

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.

Del Rio, TX (KDRT), 12:00Z

2.8 hours before the tornado, 107 km from the path. June 14, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Del Rio, TX at 12:00Z on 2013-06-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 683 joules per kilogram, CIN -14, lifted condensation level 535 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Del Rio, TX at 12:00Z on 2013-06-14The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -36 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 7 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
683 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-14 J/kg
Surface CAPE
249 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
535 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-36 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-56 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Del Rio, TX (KDRT), 00:00Z

9.2 hours after it, 107 km from the path. June 15, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Del Rio, TX at 00:00Z on 2013-06-15Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1149 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 539 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Del Rio, TX at 00:00Z on 2013-06-15The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 10 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1149 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1376 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
539 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
10 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
35 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.2
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Laughlin AFB radar (KDFX), 53 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:49 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
14:50 UTCTORNADO6 Wnw KnippaUvalde, TXBRIEF TORNADO PRODUCE SOME TREE AND ROOF DAMAGE.
17:10 UTCFLASH FLOOD7 Ene SpoffordKinney, TXHIGHWAY 1572 IS CLOSED DUE TO FLOODING. MANY STREAMS AND CREEKS ARE RISING.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.