EF0 tornado, Jeannetta, Texas, May 24, 2015

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 24, 2015

Touchdown

6:33 AM CDT (11:33 UTC)

Lifted

6:38 AM CDT (11:38 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

4

Property damage

$200,000

County

Harris County

Touchdown point

29.674, -95.528

Lift-off point

29.681, -95.526

Record number

1505240533-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HGX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• Consistent with damage for several apartment units in the complex. Trees /large limbs down, partial roof loss on second floor units, glass windows blown out of units and cars.
• Bldg approx 50 yds south of this location right off of Bissonnet St. Broken windows 10-12 stories up on north-northeast side, opposite
• Complete roof loss. Unit facing south. Some wall compromise within unit apparent from the street. End of path and most severe damage at this location. Photo looking north.
• 3 or 4 free standing light poles creased and bent at the base. metal sheeting and misc. debris from neighboring storage units to the south distributed across this location. Very small path here. Perhaps 50 yds wide and 100 yds long. Likely first skip/touchdown of weak, fast-moving tornado.

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

An upper disturbance initiated a large thunderstorm complex that traveled across southeastern Texas. This line produced damaging severe thunderstorm gusts and an EF-1 tornado along its eastward progression across the Houston area.

A fast moving tornado briefly touched down at two points in southwest Houston. There was damage to a storage facility along and just west of Gessner Road, an apartment complex, and an office building. There were ten structures that had roof damage at the apartment complex, including one with complete roof removal and interior wall damage. A twelve story glass fa��ade building just south of the apartment complex along Bissonnet Street had several north facing windows blown out. Damage was indicative of an EF1 tornado. There were four minor injuries at the apartment complex where the most significant damage occurred.

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

31 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:02 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 11:45 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:47 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 Houston radar (KHGX), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:30 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 2015 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.