EF0 tornado, Arcadia Park to Eagle Ford, Texas, May 8, 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 8, 2014

Touchdown

3:15 PM CDT (20:15 UTC)

Lifted

3:16 PM CDT (20:16 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

120 yards (110 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$80,000

County

Dallas County

Touchdown point

32.757, -96.889

Lift-off point

32.760, -96.882

Record number

1405081415-01

13 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

• If the video of a funnel made contact with the ground, it would be in this area. See image and image from where the point was taken...I-30 westbound at Exit 36. Photo is copyright property of WFAA-TV
• WFAA photographer (video) location. Can't determine for sure if the funnel ever made contact with the ground. Photo is copyright and property of WFAA-TV
• Multiple fragments of insulation from the building blown back into the field to the south/southwest

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

Large scale lift ahead of an upper level shortwave, combined with ample instability and adequate moisture across the region, resulted in numerous thunderstorms across the region. Scattered convection developed in the afternoon hours but a linear MCS had formed by the late afternoon hours. Hail up to the size of golf balls was reported but the most significant damage occurred in Dallas County due to damaging wind gusts. A weak tornado produced minor damage in west Dallas, but damaging downburst winds produced numerous tree damage and brought down power lines across areas in and around the city of Dallas. Heavy rainfall also produced flash flooding in Dallas and also in Hunt County. One fatality was reported in the Dallas area due to a car crash on a wet roadway.

A National Weather Service Storm Survey found evidence of a tornado that produced EF-0 damage to a warehouse building. Several windows were blown out of a warehouse in Cockrell Hill. The building suffered roof damage as well, as the tornado moved generally from the southwest to the northeast.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 20:03 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.

The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:14 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

7 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.