EF1 tornado, Luther, Texas, May 5, 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 5, 2015

Touchdown

3:23 PM CDT (20:23 UTC)

Lifted

3:50 PM CDT (20:50 UTC)

On the ground

27 minutes

Path length

8.1 miles (13.1 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Howard County

Touchdown point

32.449, -101.547

Lift-off point

32.479, -101.413

Record number

1505051423-01

5 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 105 mph.

• Tornado touchdown, no damage at this point.
• piece of guardrail with broken mesquite tree.
• snapped power poles. 100 yd wide.
• tornado lifted just north of this point.

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

An upper level low was over Arizona and New Mexico, and an upper level disturbance associated with this low moved over West Texas. A dryline was present across the Permian Basin with good moisture and instability to the east of this feature. There were outflow boundaries left over from convection across the area during the morning hours that aided in thunderstorm and tornado development during the afternoon and evening hours. Slow moving thunderstorms also allowed for flash flooding to occur in some areas.

A thunderstorm moved across Howard County and produced a tornado near Luther. The tornado touched down in a rural area north of Big Spring, Texas at 3:23 pm CDT and continued generally east for a distance of 8.12 miles before lifting at approximately 3:50 pm CDT. A couple members of the Howard County Volunteer Fire Department witnessed the tornado. The only damage seen was to a couple of power poles which were snapped near the base. Based on the damage seen by the survey team, the tornado is being rated as an EF-1 with an estimated wind speed of 100 mph. The cost of damage is a rough estimate.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:13 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:45 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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 Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:22 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

5 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.