EF2 tornado, Seminole to Cedar Lake, Texas, November 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

November 16, 2015

Touchdown

6:46 PM CST (00:46 UTC)

Lifted

6:56 PM CST (00:56 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

5.6 miles (9.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Gaines County

Touchdown point

32.656, -102.446

Lift-off point

32.709, -102.374

Record number

1511161846-01

An upper low was over the Four Corners region with strong upper level jet winds over West Texas. Plentiful moisture was in place across the area to the east of a surface trough and dryline. A Pacific cold front moving in from the west collided with the dryline and increased lift. These conditions, along with good instability, allowed for a tornado and thunderstorms with large hail and strong winds to develop across the Permian Basin.

A thunderstorm moved across Gaines County and produced a tornado. The tornado began east southeast of Seminole at approximately 6:46 pm CST and moved northeast. It had caused power pole and irrigation equipment damage and was likely an EF-1 at 6:48 pm. At 6:50 pm, the tornado briefly reached EF-2 intensity as it caused damage to a well service rig. The last visible damage was to an area of trees just north of the intersection of Highway 180 and County Road 433 east of Seminole. A cotton field was also damaged as a result of this tornado. The path width was estimated to be 100 yards. There is not enough information to determine an approximate cost of damage.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS MAF issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:39 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:10 UTC and running to 03:16 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 20:16 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.

Seminole (GNC), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:47 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

38 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.