Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2017

EF2 tornado, Voca to Satuit, Texas, January 15, 2017

From Voca to Satuit, this EF2 tornado ran 2.0 miles across McCulloch County on January 15, 2017, touching down at 7:00 PM CST and reaching 450 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF2
Date
January 15, 2017
Touchdown
7:00 PM CST (01:00 UTC)
Lifted
7:05 PM CST (01:05 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
450 yards (411 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
McCulloch County
Touchdown point
31.082, -99.211
Lift-off point
31.110, -99.203
Record number
1701151900-01

What the Weather Service recorded

An unstable atmosphere, with strong wind shear and moderate instability, resulted in the development of a Quasi-Linear Convective System or squall line as a Pacific cold front move across West Central Texas. This system produced a tornado in a rural area just southeast of Brady and damaging thunderstorm wind gusts just east of Menard.

A National Weather Service Damage Survey team determined an EF-2 tornado touched down about 8 miles southeast of Brady. Numerous hardwood trees were uprooted and many tree trunks were snapped off.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:02 UTC and running to 03:13 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
13:01 UTC17:00 UTCDense Fog AdvisorySJT
21:02 UTC03:13 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WatchSJT
09:04 UTC12:29 UTCDense Fog AdvisorySJT

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:50 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 air that afternoon

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.

Del Rio, TX (KDLF), 00:00Z

1.0 hours before the tornado, 248 km from the path. January 16, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Del Rio, TX at 00:00Z on 2017-01-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 540 joules per kilogram, CIN -21, lifted condensation level 1460 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Del Rio, TX at 00:00Z on 2017-01-16The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 0 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 0 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
540 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-21 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1068 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1460 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
0 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
0 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
0 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
0 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
7.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Del Rio, TX (KDLF), 12:00Z

11.0 hours after it, 248 km from the path. January 16, 2017.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Del Rio, TX at 12:00Z on 2017-01-16Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -90660, lifted condensation level 2011 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Del Rio, TX at 12:00Z on 2017-01-16The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -64 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 62 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-90660 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2011 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
62 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-64 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
91 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
1.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The San Angelo radar (KSJT), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:00 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
01:00 UTCTSTM WND DMG5 Ne VocaMcculloch, TXOVER 100 BIG OAK TREES WERE BLOWN DOWN. THERE WERE 30-40 LARGE OAK TREES BROKEN OFF AT THE BASE. ALSO... TOP HALF OF 100-200 OAK TREES WERE STRIPPED. A WINDMILL AND POWER LINES WERE BLOWN OVER .
01:00 UTCTORNADO8 Se BradyMcculloch, TXTORNADO STRAT TIME 7 PM/END TIME 705 PM. A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DAMAGE SURVEY TEAM DETERMINED AN EF-2 TORNADO TOUCH DOWN 8 MILES SOUTHEAST OF BRADY. THE MAXIMUM WIND SPEED WAS 115 MPH AND THE PATH LENGTH WAS 2.5 MILE

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of January 15, 2017

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 153:48 PM CSTEF0Madison, TX1.320
January 155:45 PM CSTEF2Coryell, TX12.9200$500,000
January 156:17 PM CSTEF1Bosque, TX1.4120$90,000
January 156:35 PM CSTEF1Bosque, TX6.52002$300,000
January 158:11 PM CSTEF0Johnson, TX3.140$150,000
January 158:43 PM CSTEF0Dallas, TX0.380$120,000

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.