EF0 tornado, Channing, Texas, June 6, 2014

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

June 6, 2014

Touchdown

7:15 PM CDT (00:15 UTC)

Lifted

7:20 PM CDT (00:20 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.5 miles (4.0 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hartley County

Touchdown point

35.696, -102.513

Lift-off point

35.727, -102.492

Record number

1406061815-01

The combination of a stationary front, upper level shortwave, and an unstable environment helped to initiate thunderstorms across the Texas Panhandle during the evening hours of the 6th and into the early morning hours of the 7th. The stationary front provided a focusing mechanism for discrete thunderstorms to develop across the western and northern Texas Panhandle around 5 PM CST. The SPC Mesoanalysis page showed roughly 3000 J/kg of CAPE and 40-50kts (46-60mph) of deep layer shear across the Panhandle. Within this environment the storms quickly became severe producing large hail and damaging wind. Low level helicity also allowed two storms to produce brief tornadoes. Given the high amount of deep layer shear the discrete cells developed into a broken line of storms as they moved across the Texas Panhandle. The broken line was completely into western Oklahoma by 10 PM CST. Residual boundaries and another shortwave allowed scattered thunderstorms to develop during the early morning hours of the 7th with a few becoming severe. All convection diminished by daybreak on the 7th.

A discrete supercell developed during the evening hours of the 6th. As the storm intensified it produced a brief tornado over the rural portions of Hartley County. Due to the location of the tornado, minimal damage was located however multiple eye witnesses reported the tornado. The winds were estimated at 65 mph. After producing this brief tornado, the supercell began to diminish as it merged with a broken line of thunderstorms.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:06 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:45 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 20:00 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.

Dalhart Municipal (DHT), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:15 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 2014 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.