EF2 tornado, Circle to Rusk, Texas, December 19, 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

December 19, 2017

Touchdown

6:53 PM CST (00:53 UTC)

Lifted

7:06 PM CST (01:06 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

3.1 miles (5.0 km)

Path width

691 yards (632 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$120,000

County

Cherokee County

Touchdown point

31.744, -95.193

Lift-off point

31.769, -95.149

Record number

1712191853-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• several trees in this area
• 5 concrete poll down 2 cracked
• Several trees uprooted and all laying to the northeast. Utility barn to the south sustained severe damage.

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

A warm front lifted north across East Texas and North Louisiana to along the Arkansas/Louisiana border during the afternoon hours of December 19th, focusing showers a large area of rain north of this boundary over portions of extreme Northeast Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Arkansas. Meanwhile, much warmer and humid air was found south of the front across Lower East Texas and Northcentral Louisiana, resulting in moderate surface instability. Meanwhile, a surface low developed during the afternoon over North Texas along a weak cold front, associated with a strong upper level trough of low pressure that progressed east across Westcentral and North Texas during the afternoon and evening. Steep lapse rates aloft enhanced instability across the warm sector south of the warm front, with adequate shear present and strong upper level forcing ahead of the trough leading to the development of stronger, more surface based showers and thunderstorms. These storms became severe as they moved into Southern Cherokee County Texas, with an isolated tornado touching down just south of Rusk. Other reports of wind damage were received with these storms as they slowly marched east northeast across East Texas south of Interstate 20. Locally heavy rainfall also accompanied these showers and thunderstorms, which trained for a few hours over the same areas resulting in flash flooding across portions of Southern Cherokee, Gregg, and Southwest Panola Counties. These storms gradually weakened as they approached the Lower Toledo Bend Country during the late evening hours.

An EF-2 tornado with maximum estimated winds near 115 mph touched down along County Road 1857 southwest of Rusk, where it snapped numerous trees and bent a power pole about 45-50 degrees above the ground. One home on County Road 2210 had its roof ripped off. The tornado crossed County Road 2211 where it snapped the tops of several trees, before it tracked across an open field before crossing FM 23. Numerous trees were either snapped or uprooted along FM 23, with portions of a metal roof and shingles beneath it ripped off of a home and thrown into a open field behind the home. A nearby metal outbuilding was also lofted and destroyed. The tornado continued northeast across FM 752 an intensified where it snapped additional trees and broke/bent 5 concrete poles and cracked an additional 2 poles. The tornado lifted shortly thereafter just east of FM 752 south of the city of Rusk.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 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.

Jacksonville (JSO), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 147 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:51 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

1 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.