EF1 tornado, Harvey, Texas, May 26, 2016

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 26, 2016

Touchdown

12:30 PM CDT (17:30 UTC)

Lifted

12:38 PM CDT (17:38 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

2.9 miles (4.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$7.0 million

County

Brazos County

Touchdown point

30.679, -96.311

Lift-off point

30.639, -96.320

Record number

1605261130-01

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

• Hard to judge extent of roof loss; also trees in fairly good shape.
• Considered EF-2 rating but looking at surrounding damage to adjacent structures and trees on the property went with high end EF1.
• High end EF1, borderline EF2.
• Again high end EF1, borderline EF2. Took into consideration retalively light damage to trees, surrounding structures.

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

Strong upper level disturbances combined with above average moisture levels and favorable upper level wind patterns to produce a round of severe thunderstorms that eventually trained and produced excessive rainfall and flash flood during the afternoon hours of the 26th and on into the overnight and early morning hours of the 27th. Rainfall totals of 6 to 10 inches were common over the north and northwestern parts of Harris County into Waller, Montgomery, and Washington Counties, with much of the rain falling in a 3 to 6 hour period. Portions of Washington County recorded over 12 inches of rainfall in a 3 hour period. This event was the fourth federal disaster declaration for Harris County in the last year.

Tornado touched down in College Station near the 900 block of Lincoln Avenue. It then followed an intermittent track through the Home Depot parking lot then across Route 6 just north of the intersection with University Drive. It crossed a field then produced a more continuous damage path through the Wheeler Ridge subdivision then across the Miramont subdivision. The tornado was observed to lift just north near the intersection of route 1179 and Riverstone Drive. The tornado was rated at the top of the EF1 scale as a few of the homes had significant portions of roofs removed. Majority of damage was EF0 to low-end EF1. Damage dollar amounts are estimated.

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 16:30 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 Ft Hood radar (KGRK), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:28 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 2016 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.