EF0 tornado, Walcott, Texas, May 28, 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 28, 2013

Touchdown

9:06 PM CDT (02:06 UTC)

Lifted

9:11 PM CDT (02:11 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.1 miles (3.3 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Deaf Smith County

Touchdown point

34.994, -102.921

Lift-off point

35.019, -102.902

Record number

1305282006-01

2 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.

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

A severe weather outbreak brought hail, damaging winds, tornadoes, and flash flooding to the Panhandles from the afternoon of the 28th into the early morning hours of the 29th. The morning upper air analysis on the 28th showed a mid-level shortwave trough rotating around the base of a longwave trough situated from Idaho to Arizona. At the surface, a dryline was situated from the northeastern Oklahoma Panhandle to the southwestern Texas Panhandle. The 6 AM CST upper air sounding from Amarillo showed a low level capping inversion with significant elevated instability. Also deep layer shear was primed for the development of discrete supercells. On the 12 PM CST sounding, instability values had increased further. By noon, the northern portion of the dryline had moved into south central Kansas before stretching back into the southwestern Texas Panhandle. ||By the late afternoon, across Potter and Randall Counties, the dryline had advanced into the western portions of both counties allowing showers and thunderstorms, which moved northeastward along dryline, to produce damaging wind gusts in the Amarillo (Potter and Randall County) area. These thunderstorm wind gusts blew a communication tower and billboard down at the Texas Blue Lake Pools in Amarillo (Randall County). Also a main communication tower for High Plains Radio was damaged which ended the broadcast for several of their across the Texas Panhandle radio stations. The Amarillo Police Department blocked off an area near the intersection of Osage Road and SE 27th Ave due to downed power lines and debris. As the dryline moved into the eastern portions of Potter and Randall Counties during the early evening, thunderstorms over the Amarillo area were cut off from moist inflows and decayed quickly. The extremely dry near surface air evaporated precipitation from the decaying storms causing non-thunderstorm high winds across the Amarillo area. These high winds blew the roof off the River Road ISD field house (Randall County) and downed power lines across the city. Xcel Energy reported nearly 6500 people lost power from the combination of thunderstorm and non-thunderstorm wind gusts, and 4000 people would remain without power until the 29th as power lines and poles were repaired or replaced. ||During the late evening the dryline began to retreat westward as the nocturnal low level jet transported moisture from the Gulf of Mexico northwestward. As the dryline retreated across Oldham and Deaf Smith Counties, a near stationary discrete supercell formed and produced two short lived tornadoes in Deaf Smith County. These tornadoes formed over grasslands, and produced little damage. As the dryline continued to retreat to the west, the supercell took a northeastward track producing hail up to the size of hen eggs across Deaf Smith and Oldham Counties and produced several funnel clouds. ||The storm continued to produce large hail and funnel clouds as it moved into Potter and Randall Counties. This large hail broke out skylights, broke windshields, busted out windows of portables, and damaged work vehicles at schools within the Bushland (Randall County) ISD. As the supercell approached the western portion of Amarillo (Randall and Potter County) several members of the public reported funnel clouds. Video evidence of one such funnel cloud showed the cloud lowering near to the ground, but no physical evidence of a touchdown was able to be identified by National Weather Service survey teams. ||What this supercell did produce across Amarillo (Potter and Randall County) was copious amounts of destructive hail up to the size of baseballs and heavy rain. The City of Amarillo reported that 225 of its work vehicles had some form of hail damage with an estimated repair cost between $2000 and $8500. The City Building Safety Director reported approximately 75 percent of homes around the city suffered hail damage of varying degrees. The Amarillo Botanical Gardens suffered massive damage to plants across the four acre property totaling in thousands of dollars of damage. The hail also damaged a greenhouse in the rear portion of the property. The accumulation of hail and heavy rain also flooded the Garden���s gallery while the strong winds blew a portion of the perimeter fencing down. Gene Messer Ford and AutoNation Chevrolet-Cadillac reported between 300 and 400 vehicles damaged from the hail with Gene Messer Ford estimating the damage to be between 3 and 4 million dollars. The total estimated of repair cost across the city of Amarillo (Randall and Potter Counties) is near $400 million dollars which dwarfs the June 21, 2004 hail storm which cost the city $175 million dollars. ||The supercell continued traveling to the northeast entering into Carson County. Upon entering the county the supercell encountered an increasing unfavorable environment as the nocturnal inversion strengthened. However, before the dissipating the thunderstorm was able to produce quarter size hail in the city of Panhandle (Carson County). The remnants of the supercell proceeded to move to the northeast until dissipating over southern Kansas.

A discrete supercell thunderstorm produced a tornado over northwest Deaf Smith County during the evening hours on the 28th. An eye witness on County Road RR west of Simms (Deaf Smith County) reported seeing the thunderstorm produce a funnel cloud which touched down, widened quickly, shrunk, and then lifted off the ground. A National Weather Service survey team located the path of this brief tornado and found that the tornado traveled a little over 2 miles in the 5 minutes it was connected with the ground. The max wind speed was estimated to be 80 mph. No injuries or fatalities were associated with this tornado.

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

12 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:54 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:58 UTC and running to 05:00 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 01:01 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.

Hereford (HRX), 56 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

24 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.