Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2015

EF0 tornado, Telferner, Texas, May 13, 2015

This EF0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Victoria County on May 13, 2015, touching down at 4:01 PM CDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
May 13, 2015
Touchdown
4:01 PM CDT (21:01 UTC)
Path length
0.0 miles (0.0 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Victoria County
Touchdown point
28.802, -96.844
Lift-off point
28.802, -96.844
Record number
1505131501-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A stalled front along with abundant moisture and an upper level disturbance produced heavy rainfall across many areas of the Coastal Bend on May 13th, 2015. Average rain amounts of 3 to 4 inches fell with isolated amounts between 6 to 8 inches during the morning of the 13th on the south side of Corpus Christi including Flour Bluff, North Padre Island, and Mustang Island. This rainfall came on the heels of another heavy rain event, that occurred in the previous two days. ||Many streets and subdivisions in Corpus Christi were flooded. Some roads were even closed for a portion of the day. Many Corpus Christi schools delayed classes due to the widespread flooding. Similar conditions occurred in Orange Grove, Agua Dulce, and Freer. ||Several thunderstorms throughout the morning and afternoon hours exhibited signs of rotation. There were several reported funnel clouds across the area. One brief tornado touchdown was reported around 20 miles southwest of Freer in northern Webb County.

Victoria Fire Marshall reported a tornado lasted less than a minute to the southeast of Victoria Regional Airport near Farm to Market Road 1686 and Gin Road.

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

The warnings

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:55 UTC and running to 22:00 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
08:43 UTC22:00 UTCFlash Flood WatchCRP
14:55 UTC22:00 UTCTornado WatchCRP
21:10 UTC21:45 UTCTornado WarningCRP

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 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 air that afternoon

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.

Corpus Christi, TX (KCRP), 12:00Z

9.0 hours before the tornado, 129 km from the path. May 13, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Corpus Christi, TX at 12:00Z on 2015-05-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 187 joules per kilogram, CIN -130, lifted condensation level 798 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Corpus Christi, TX at 12:00Z on 2015-05-13The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 124 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
187 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-130 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1139 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
798 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
124 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
203 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Corpus Christi, TX (KCRP), 00:00Z

3.0 hours after it, 129 km from the path. May 14, 2015.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Corpus Christi, TX at 00:00Z on 2015-05-14Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 626 joules per kilogram, CIN -86, lifted condensation level 1095 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Corpus Christi, TX at 00:00Z on 2015-05-14The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 71 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
626 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-86 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3222 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1095 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
71 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
157 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
1.7
0-3 km lapse rate
6.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Corpus Christi radar (KCRP), 131 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:01 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
20:24 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD4 Wsw GanadoJackson, TXFUNNEL CLOUD OVER LAKE TEXANA...BETWEEN EDNA AND GANADO.
21:05 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD5 Se VictoriaVictoria, TXFIRE MARSHALL IN VICTORIA REPORTED BRIEF FUNNEL CLOUD NEAR VICTORIA AIRPORT FM 1686 AND GIN ROAD. BRIEFLY TOUCHED DOWN FOR ABOUT 30 SECONDS THEN WENT BACK UP.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2015 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 13, 2015

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 135:57 PM CDTEF0King, TX0.125
May 136:26 PM CDTEF0Webb, TX0.650

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.