EF1 tornado, Jonesville to Lorraine, Texas, May 16, 2013

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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 16, 2013

Touchdown

2:34 PM CDT (19:34 UTC)

Lifted

2:36 PM CDT (19:36 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

32.464, -94.056

Lift-off point

32.460, -94.051

Record number

1305161334-01

43 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 100 mph.

• 224 PM partially dead tree
• 229 pm several trees down to SE
• 235 PM multiple trees snapped at trunk
• 240 PM eyewitness saw tornado

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

An upper level low pressure system was moving slowly through Eastern Oklahoma into Western Arkansas during the afternoon hours of May 16th. A lone supercell thunderstorm across North Central Texas developed during the late morning hours of May 16th. This storm developed in a strongly sheared environment which allowed the storm to sustain itself. The storm moved south and east towards a strong instability axis which was oriented across Northeast Texas into Northwest Louisiana. With strong heating, strong instability developed and the supercell thunderstorm intensified as it moved south and east. The storm produced several tornado tracks, some of which occurred in Harrison County Texas and other into Southwest Caddo Parish and Northern Desoto Parish. The storm was a prolific hail and wind producer as well with wind gusts near 100 mph south of Shreveport, Louisiana with large fields of hail which turned numerous acres of land completely white.

This tornado began 5 miles west of Waskom and just south of I-20. The tornado caused damage to several metal buildings at Five Star Builders. The tornado then tracked east uprooting and snapping trees along its path before lifting near CR-1105. There was one injury reported with this tornado.

This tornado touched down just south of I-20 on the southern end of Waskom just west of Magnolia Road. The tornado caused minor damage to metal buildings and equipment at Red Diamond Oilfield Services. The tornado then tracked south southeast uprooting and snapping trees along its path and causing damage to a few residential homes. The tornado lifted about 0.5 miles south of I-20 and 0.25 miles east of Magnolia Road.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:29 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:46 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 16:31 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.

Shreveport Regional (SHV), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 20 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:35 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

3 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.