EF2 tornado, Payne Springs to Fruitvale, Texas, April 29, 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 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

April 29, 2017

Touchdown

5:51 PM CDT (22:51 UTC)

Lifted

6:04 PM CDT (23:04 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

11.7 miles (18.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

10

Property damage

$600,000

Crop damage

$80,000

Counties

Henderson and Van Zandt counties

Touchdown point

32.251, -95.980

Lift-off point

32.406, -95.903

Record number

1704291651-01

153 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF4. The highest wind the damage implies is 180 mph.

• Car thrown from house from garage approximately 250 yards south.
• considerably larger than 3 inch limbs broken
• Branches remain but bark stripped off numerous trees.
• poor attachment of walls. nails every two feet or so

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

A deep low pressure system near the Four corners continued to move east, causing early morning thunderstorms to develop along the Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma. A cold front was moving southeast across the state and entered our northwestern|counties around sunrise. The strength of the cap was sufficient to hamper any development until mid afternoon. Deep forcing for ascent approached from from the west while remnant boundaries associated with convection over far East Texas and West Louisiana moved in from the east. By 3:30 PM, several parameters came together for the rapid development of severe storms east of Interstate 35/35E. Pre-frontal convection led to the development of supercells, producing numerous tornadoes over a relatively small area. Additional storm development quickly developed along the cold front with several reports of large hail, and eventually producing a brief EF-0 Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS) tornado (Tornado #7). ||The survey crew teams determined yesterday that there was a nearly 55 mile damage swath, yet found evidence that there were two tornadoes which caused the damage. One tornado began in western Henderson County and moved into central Van Zandt County. This tornado occluded and dissipated, and a second, long track tornado began nearby. This second tornado was the EF-3 which produced damage on the east side of Canton, Fruitvale, Emory, and finally dissipating near Lake Fork. The first tornado had|a track of approximately 12 miles, while the other had a track of nearly 42 miles. ||It is known that four people lost their lives due to these tornadoes, and 59 people were injured.

A National Weather Service damage survey crew found the start of tornado number three began in Henderson County, approximately 3 miles due south of Eustace. This tornado eventually moved into Van Zandt County, where the storm produced EF4 damage. In Henderson County, several homes suffered EF2 damage, along with a considerable amount of tree damage and damage to farm buildings. As the storm moved into Van Zandt County, the tornado grew to a mile wide at the tornado's maximum width. Over 50 homes were either damaged or destroyed, with a continuous path noted between counties.

This tornado developed northeast of Log Cabin with the first|visible damage associated to snapped trees. As the tornado moved |north/northeast, a tall communications tower was snapped in half. |Eventually, the tornado crossed paths with several homes which led|to complete destruction and many debarked trees. The damage path |continued to the northeast, eventually stopping near the|intersection of Van Zandt County Road 2903 and FM 1256. As this|tornado occluded and dissipated, the next tornado began in the next|few minutes.

This tornado began nearly as the last tornado dissipated to the south and west. The parent supercell cycled another tornado about a mile to the east and northeast of the previous storm. This tornado quickly grew to a large tornado, becoming slightly less than one mile wide at its widest point. The tornado was at the strongest near Interstate 20 and FM 17 just north of Canton. The survey crews found continuous damage between Canton and Fruitvale, and then additional damage as far north as Emory, |and Lake Fork. Several homes, businesses, and farm buildings were damaged or destroyed in the 40 mile continuous damage path. This tornado occurred for over an hour, and spanned most of Van Zandt, and nearly all of Rains Counties during the 80 minute track.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

28 minutes of warning. NWS FWD issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:23 UTC, 28 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:45 UTC and running to 02:38 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 131 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:53 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

17 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.