EF1 tornado, Lindale, 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 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

April 29, 2017

Touchdown

8:45 PM CDT (01:45 UTC)

Lifted

8:48 PM CDT (01:48 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

570 yards (521 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Smith County

Touchdown point

32.566, -95.462

Lift-off point

32.593, -95.422

Record number

1704291945-01

A strong, closed upper level low pressure system drifted east across the Texas Panhandle and into Western Oklahoma April 29th and the early morning hours of April 30th. Very strong southerly winds transported rich tropical moisture from the Gulf of Mexico across much of EastCentral Texas, North Louisiana, Southwest Arkansas, and Eastern Oklahoma, with much above normal temperatures returning north across the warm sector as far north as Southern and Eastern Oklahoma. This helped to enhance the instability over these areas, where strong wind shear and deep layer forcing increased well ahead of the upper low over the Interstate 35 corridor of Northcentral Texas. Meanwhile, a shortwave trough ejected northeast across Southeast Texas and Northcentral Louisiana ahead of the closed low during the late morning through the afternoon hours, with scattered strong to severe thunderstorms developing over portions of Deep East Texas which spread northeast and intensified across Northcentral Louisiana. Scattered showers and thunderstorms later developed near and east of the DFW Metroplex during the afternoon of the 29th, which spread east into East Texas by late afternoon and early evening. These storms originally produced the deadly Canton tornado in Van Zandt County in addition to several other tornadoes across Henderson, Van Zandt, and Rains Counties, with some of these supercell thunderstorms also producing two brief tornadoes over Northwest Smith and Western Wood Counties. These storms gradually weakened as they entered the Ark-La-Tex, although sporadic wind and hail damage was observed across portions of extreme Southeast Oklahoma, Southwest Arkansas, and Northwest Louisiana. The storms exited the region prior to daybreak on April 30th.

An EF-1 tornado with maximum estimated winds between 100-110 MPH touched down about one-quarter mile west of County Road 4119 north of Lindale, and moved northeast across Highway 69. Several trees were snapped and uprooted along its path, where it crossed Farm to Market Road 4118. Here, the roof of a barn was lifted and then dropped back onto the structure, sustaining extensive damage. The tornado crossed Farm to Market Road 4118 once again before lifting about one-quarter of a mile to the northeast shortly before reaching the Sabine River.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:26 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:10 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:58 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.

Mineola/Quitman (JDD), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 151 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:42 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.