EF0 tornado, Dodd to Dimmitt, Texas, April 14, 2017

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

April 14, 2017

Touchdown

6:27 PM CDT (23:27 UTC)

Lifted

6:36 PM CDT (23:36 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Castro County

Touchdown point

34.502, -102.410

Lift-off point

34.509, -102.368

Record number

1704141727-01

66 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LUB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 146 mph.

• Looking northeastward. Much of damaged material carried north and westward, while portion of garage wall collapsed to the west.
• Wind entry at South facing garage, debris blown off to north. Picture taken looking to the east.
• Looking east-northeast. Most of damage blown northward. Pickup truck blown into back of SUV was orginally parked behind the SUV.
• Major damage on South side of home. Picture is looking north-northwestward. Most of debris was also blown toward the north.

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

On the afternoon of the 14th, isolated thunderstorms developed along a dryline over far east-central New Mexico and moved into Parmer and Bailey Counties. Mixed layer CAPE reached values on the order of 3000 J/kg by late afternoon, with low level wind shear amplifying by early evening. One of these storms evolved into a slow moving supercell that persisted for almost nine hours and produced at least seven known tornadoes, including an exceptionally large EF-3 tornado near Dimmitt (Castro County) that damaged some homes and destroyed several structures. It is possible that satellite tornadoes accompanied the larger tornado at times, but no definitive evidence to this point was available. After remaining in Castro County for nearly four hours and producing flash flooding north and northwest of Dimmitt, the supercell storm finally accelerated southeast before dissipating over Motley County around 0100 CST on the 15th. A plethora of video evidence was available from numerous storm chasers observing this supercell.

This is the continuation of the prior tornado in Parmer County. This tornado tracked east into west-central Castro County where it dissipated around 1707 CST, about 12 miles west-southwest of Dimmitt. No evidence of damage accompanied this tornado.

A storm chaser observed a brief tornado touchdown just south of the intersection of State Highway 86 and Farm to Market road 1524. Several power poles were downed along Farm to Market road 1524.

Several storm chasers observed a tornado that began around the intersection of Farm to Market Road 1055 and County Road 618 and moved east for approximately two miles. Video evidence indicated this tornado moved over a feed lot and then into an open field. Several power lines were downed along Farm to Market Road 1055 and County Road 510.

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:05 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:50 UTC and running to 03:00 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 19:38 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.

Hereford (HRX), 40 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:26 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 2017 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.