EF1 tornado, Gill, Texas, May 24, 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 24, 2015

Touchdown

11:34 AM CDT (16:34 UTC)

Lifted

11:36 AM CDT (16:36 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.0 km)

Path width

128 yards (117 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

32.359, -94.359

Lift-off point

32.386, -94.356

Record number

1505241034-01

28 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• 30x30 foot structure destroyed. pick up truck tossed 180 degrees.
• Big Rig blown over, carrying a load of packages.

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

A persistent southwest flow aloft dominated the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley. Shortwave troughs embedded in this flow influenced the Four State Region during the late morning, afternoon and evening hours of May 24th. Daytime heating resulted in the instability needed to produce showers and thunderstorms. Some of these storms produced strong and damaging wind gusts and tornadoes.

National Weather Service Storm Survey Team determined that damage across Harrison County was consistent with that of a tornado. An EF1 tornado touched down south of Marshall, Texas and snapped and uprooted numerous trees. A home sustained roof damage when the wind lifted the carport portion of the roof structure. The owner also lost a 30 by 30 foot outbuilding. A warehouse also had some roof damage south of the residence.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:32 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:35 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.