Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2016
EF0 tornado, Lake Meredith, Texas, June 13, 2016
This EF0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Moore County on June 13, 2016, touching down at 8:06 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- June 13, 2016
- Touchdown
- 8:06 PM CDT (01:06 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:11 PM CDT (01:11 UTC)
- On the ground
- 5 minutes
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Moore County
- Touchdown point
- 35.788, -101.747
- Lift-off point
- 35.792, -101.745
- Record number
- 1606131906-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A weak upper disturbance moved across the region in advance of a vigorous upper trough which was moving across the southwest United States. Strong instability and moderate to strong low level wind shear provided a favorable environment for super cell thunderstorms to occur in advance of a developing line of thunderstorms which swept across the region during the evening hours. Storms produced large hail up to tennis ball size, wind gusts that were measured as high as 65 mph, and two tornadoes. The most significant damage form this event came from an EF2 tornado which rolled a well anchored double wide trailer onto it's roof in rural Carson County.
A brief tornado touched down in rural southeast Moore County just south of Highway 152. Tree damage was observed in a narrow path and included numerous broken limbs and one tree which was uprooted. This was consistent with EF-0 damage on the Fujita Tornado Damage Scale.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
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.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:32 UTC and running to 03:01 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:52 UTC | 23:32 UTC | Tornado Watch | AMA |
| 23:28 UTC | 00:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | AMA |
| 23:32 UTC | 03:01 UTC | Tornado Watch | AMA |
| 00:36 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Flood Advisory | AMA |
| 01:07 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | AMA |
| 05:21 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | AMA |
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 forecast that day
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 01:00 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 air that afternoon
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.
Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 00:00Z
1.1 hours before the tornado, 62 km from the path. June 14, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2268 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -24 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 4224 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1676 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 36 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 7 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 59 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 80 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 5.8
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.5 K/km
Amarillo Airport, TX (KAMA), 12:00Z
10.9 hours after it, 62 km from the path. June 14, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 833 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -91 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1649 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 613 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 18 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 133 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 128 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.5
- Supercell composite
- 5.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
The surface observations
Dumas (DUX), 25 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:15 UTC | 80.6 | 65 | 120° 12 kt | 1012.9 | ||
| 23:35 UTC | 80.42 | 65.12 | 30° 5 kt | 1012.9 | ||
| 23:55 UTC | 80.24 | 65 | 80° 9 kt | 1012.5 | -RA | |
| 00:15 UTC | 77.72 | 67.82 | 340° 7 kt | 1013.2 | RA | |
| 00:35 UTC | 72.14 | 67.64 | 270° 15 kt | 21 | 1014.2 | +RA |
| 00:55 UTC | 67.64 | 57.56 | 330° 15 kt | 21 | 1013.5 | RA |
| 01:15 UTC | 65 | 62.6 | 0° 0 kt | 1014.9 | -RA | |
| 01:35 UTC | 65 | 62.6 | 80° 7 kt | 15 | 1015.2 | -RA |
| 01:55 UTC | 65.3 | 62.78 | 80° 9 kt | 1014.2 | ||
| 02:15 UTC | 65.3 | 63.5 | 80° 5 kt | 1014.6 | -RA | |
| 02:35 UTC | 65.48 | 63.68 | 80° 12 kt | 1013.5 | -RA | |
| 02:55 UTC | 64.58 | 61.7 | 110° 13 kt | 1013.2 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:04 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:10 UTC | HAIL 1 | Valley De Oro | Potter, TX | |
| 23:15 UTC | HAIL 1.25 | Valley De Oro | Potter, TX | |
| 23:29 UTC | HAIL 2 | Valley De Oro | Potter, TX | HAIL SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN GOLF BALLS WAS BEGINNING TO FALL IN VALLEY DE ORO. |
| 23:35 UTC | HAIL 2.5 | 4 Wnw Channing | Hartley, TX | HAIL UP TO THE SIZE OF TENNIS BALLS WAS STILL FALLING NORTHWEST OF CHANNING. |
| 23:52 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 5 S Hartley | Hartley, TX | |
| 00:50 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 14 Ssw Lake Meredith | Potter, TX | |
| 01:06 UTC | TORNADO | 11 Nnw Lake Meredith | Moore, TX | TORNADO START TIME WAS 806 PM AND END TIME WAS 811 PM. END LOCATION WAS ALSO ABOUT 11 MILES NORTH NORTHWEST OF LAKE MEREDITH. RATED EF-0. |
| 01:13 UTC | HAIL 1 | 11 Sse Masterson | Potter, TX | |
| 01:25 UTC | TORNADO | 8 Nnw Pantex | Potter, TX | TORNADO START TIME WAS 825 PM AND END TIME WAS 837 PM. END LOCATION WAS 6 MILES NORTH OF PANTEX. RATED EF-2. |
| 01:27 UTC | TORNADO | 8 Wnw Pantex | Potter, TX | |
| 02:48 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 N Panhandle | Carson, TX | 5 OR 6 POWER LINES SNAPPED AND LAYING ACROSS THE ROAD |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 13, 2016
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 13 | 1:41 PM MDT | Unrated | Las Animas, CO | 2.8 | 200 | |||
| June 13 | 4:22 PM MDT | EF2 | Pennington, SD | 7.4 | 200 | $100,000 | ||
| June 13 | 5:30 PM CDT | EF0 | Saint Clair, IL | 0.4 | 25 | |||
| June 13 | 5:24 PM MDT | EF0 | Morgan, CO | 0.1 | 50 | |||
| June 13 | 6:35 PM CDT | EF0 | St. Mary Parish, LA | 0.0 | 5 | |||
| June 13 | 8:25 PM CDT | EF2 | Potter, TX | 5.0 | 100 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.