EF1 tornado, Lelia Lake to Hedley, Texas, May 16, 2015

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 16, 2015

Touchdown

2:20 PM CDT (19:20 UTC)

Lifted

2:38 PM CDT (19:38 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

8.6 miles (13.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Donley County

Touchdown point

34.873, -100.741

Lift-off point

34.961, -100.635

Record number

1505161320-01

16 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AMA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• cement anchored barn uplifted and tossed 50 yards.
• broken mesquite. New power poles leaning.
• Tree laying perp to path. 200 yard wide. some evidence of rfd also.
• wheat in adjacent field swept over

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

Plentiful moisture ahead of an approaching weather system brought widespread rainfall to the area Friday night. By Saturday morning the rain and thunderstorms had mostly pushed east into Oklahoma, but the environment over the Texas Panhandle remained very moist. As temperatures warmed and instability increased, thunderstorms intensified and became more numerous. Some of the thunderstorms became severe producing large hail and damaging winds. A supercell thunderstorm moved into Donley County around 12:30 PM CST and spawned three tornadoes as it tracked northeast across Donley, Collingsworth and Wheeler counties. Damage was mostly limited to barns, trees and power poles across rural sections of these counties. However, one home sustained significant roof damage north of Hedley. Isolated EF-1 damage occurred in two tornadoes otherwise damage was consistent with an EF-0 tornado for most of its path.

Although most of the damage along the path of this tornado was EF-0, isolated EF-1 damage occurred at a residence which sustained significant roof damage. There were also several large trees with snapped trunks near the property.

This was the second tornado to cycle from the same parent supercell thunderstorm. Most of its track occurred in Collingsworth County. The tornado developed just east of where the first tornado lifted in extreme eastern Donley County. Much of the middle section of the track occurred across extremely rural sections of Collingsworth County near the Salt Fork Red River and was inaccessible to the survey team. However, radar evidence suggested a continuous path. Most damage was EF-0 along the path, however isolated EF1 damage occurred in two locations based on snapped power poles and tree trunks in two locations.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:04 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:58 UTC and running to 23:41 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 16:31 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.

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 2015 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

47 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.