EF1 tornado, Loraine, Texas, May 25, 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 25, 2015

Touchdown

9:00 AM CDT (14:00 UTC)

Lifted

9:01 AM CDT (14:01 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$40,000

County

Mitchell County

Touchdown point

32.399, -100.717

Lift-off point

32.401, -100.716

Record number

1505250800-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MAF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 97 mph.

• Minor roof damage and piece of tin thru wall.
• Part of barn collapsed. Cement post pulled out.

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

An upper level trough was over the Rocky Mountains and an upper level disturbance moving along the base of the trough was moving toward West Texas and provided additional lift. There was a lot of instability across the area as well as strong low-level winds which helped storms to develop across West Texas in the morning hours. These storms produced large hail, strong winds, flash flooding, and a tornado.

A thunderstorm moved across Mitchell County and produced a tornado in Loraine. A damage survey was conducted the next day. The tornado touched down at approximately 9 am CDT and continued generally northeast for a distance of 0.16 miles before lifting. The tornado was on the ground for less than one minute. There was extensive damage to a barn where several walls collapsed and a pole with a cement base was pulled out of the ground. There was also damage to the local fire chief's house where debris from the barn became embedded in the side of the house. At its widest the tornado was estimated to have a width of approximately 50 yards. Based on the damage, the tornado will be rated as an EF-1 with estimated wind speeds of 100 mph. The cost of damage is a very rough estimate.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 11:46 UTC and running to 15:34 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:33 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 San Angelo radar (KSJT), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:58 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

32 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.