EF2 tornado, Courtney to White Hall, 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 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

May 26, 2016

Touchdown

3:29 PM CDT (20:29 UTC)

Lifted

3:32 PM CDT (20:32 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Grimes County

Touchdown point

30.307, -96.047

Lift-off point

30.304, -96.026

Record number

1605261429-01

8 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 107 mph.

• Trees uprooted, minor damage to prison; tower watch stander observed huge increase in wind speed and rising motion. Vehicles in parking lot moved different directions.
• Storm survey found area where numerous trees were downed in a short convergent path along William Penn Rd. Matched radar couplet.
• Trees downed, few uprooted along William Penn Rd.

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.

Large number of large trees uprooted west of Route 6. Just east a home had its roof taken off. Damage was consistent with EF2 rating.

Large damage path extended from a large commercial metal building across a ranchers property and on east into a wooded area. The large metal building and a house of the property were destroyed. Around this area and in wooded area numerous large trees were uprooted and snapped. Worst of the damage was consistent with EF2 rating.

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

35 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:54 UTC, 35 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:30 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 19:57 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 Houston radar (KHGX), 131 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:30 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.