Unrated tornado, Kress, Texas, April 14, 2017

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

April 14, 2017

Touchdown

11:25 PM CDT (04:25 UTC)

Lifted

11:32 PM CDT (04:32 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Swisher County

Touchdown point

34.321, -101.966

Lift-off point

34.319, -101.950

Record number

1704142225-01

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.

A storm chaser recorded a tornado at night northwest of Edmonson. The tornado was backlit by frequent lightning. No damage was reported from this tornado. Radar indicated the parent circulation to this tornado behaved very erratically; initially moving northeast, then stalling for several minutes, then moving slowly southeast while dissipating.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS LUB issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:21 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:45 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 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 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 Lubbock radar (KLBB), 75 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:23 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.