EF0 tornado, Rotan, Texas, May 23, 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

May 23, 2013

Touchdown

6:12 PM CDT (23:12 UTC)

Lifted

6:18 PM CDT (23:18 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Fisher County

Touchdown point

32.860, -100.450

Lift-off point

32.850, -100.460

Record number

1305231712-01

18 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SJT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.

• antenna bend to the the east
• nailed down. tin blown 300 yards to the south

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

An outflow boundary crossed the Red River into North Texas and interacted with a dryline and a very moist and unstable airmass across the Big Country to produce a supercell thunderstorm in Fisher County and a long track bow echo that originated in Haskell County. The supercell thunderstorm led to the development of a tornado on the east side of Rotan along with damaging winds and a few reports of large hail. The bow echo resulted in widespread wind damage as it tracked from Haskell to Albany across the City of Abilene and into Coleman County where it eventually weakened. A few reports of large hail were also reported.

This tornado, reported by storm chasers, impacted the east side of Rotan as it crossed State Highway 92 and the nearby golf course. The twister broke several large tree limbs, knocked down power poles and power lines, uprooted a few trees and tore off some roof shingles from a few homes. The tornado lifted near the intersection of South Genevieve Avenue and State Highway 70.

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

5 minutes of warning. NWS SJT issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:07 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:38 UTC and running to 03:00 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 19:52 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.

Sweetwater/Avenger Field Airport (SWW), 43 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Dyess AFB radar (KDYX), 118 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:13 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

4 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.