EF0 tornado, Smyer to Ropesville, Texas, May 26, 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

May 26, 2014

Touchdown

5:52 PM CDT (22:52 UTC)

Lifted

5:59 PM CDT (22:59 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500

County

Hockley County

Touchdown point

33.513, -102.198

Lift-off point

33.498, -102.167

Record number

1405261652-01

A slow-moving upper low moved across the Texas Panhandle this afternoon accompanied by a cold pocket aloft. After a fourth consecutive morning of heavy rains across the region, a few hours of clearing in the afternoon resulted in a final bout of thunderstorms; some of which became severe. The strongest of these storms moved from near Levelland and Lubbock east into the southern Rolling Plains accompanied by a downburst and marginally severe hail. A seven-minute EF0 tornado was also spotted by storm chasers in southeast Hockley County this evening. Other than removing a roof extension from a small rural shed, this tornado produced no other damage. The greatest impact by far was more torrential rainfall on top of already saturated soils. The result was widespread flooding of many roads and streets across southern Lubbock, Crosby, Hockley and Floyd Counties. To underscore the intensity of these rains, a Texas Tech University West Texas Mesonet station near Wolfforth measured an instantaneous hourly rainfall rate of a whopping 10.3 inches.

Storm spotters and an off-duty NWS employee observed a seven minute tornado over rural land about seven miles southeast of Levelland. Although this tornado did destroy a small roof extension attached to an outbuilding, the construction of the roof was of low quality and therefore the tornado was assigned an EF0 rating.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:05 UTC and running to 00:44 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:41 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.

Lubbock International Airport (LBB), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:52 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

10 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.