EF2 tornado, Darco to Marshall, Texas, March 24, 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

March 24, 2017

Touchdown

8:31 PM CDT (01:31 UTC)

Lifted

8:36 PM CDT (01:36 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.7 miles (4.4 km)

Path width

225 yards (206 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$90,000

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

32.483, -94.450

Lift-off point

32.510, -94.417

Record number

1703241931-01

31 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 112 mph.

• tree laying northeast of base
• several trees along interstate down
• trees snapped and tin in trees
• tree on house. Numerous one and two inch limbs down in area

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

A closed upper level low pressure system drifted east across Northcentral Texas and Central Oklahoma during the afternoon of March 24th. Meanwhile, an intense surface low pressure system developed over Central Oklahoma, resulting in gusty southerly winds which quickly transported very warm and moist air northward across East Texas, North Louisiana, and Southern Arkansas. This resulted in an unstable air mass, and coupled with the strong wind shear in place and increased forcing ahead of this low pressure system, resulted in strong to severe thunderstorms developing during the early evening through a portion of the overnight hours. Numerous reports of damaging winds were received across East Texas, North Louisiana, and extreme Southern Arkansas, with several tornadoes also touching down across Harrison County Texas, as well as Desoto, Natchitoches, and Jackson Parishes in Northern Louisiana. The strongest storms exited Northcentral Louisiana by 1 am on March 25th, but strong, slow moving storms persisted through the overnight hours across the southern sections of Northcentral Louisiana, resulting in beneficial rainfall for these areas.

An EF2 tornado with estimated winds between 105-115 mph touched down just south of Interstate 20 just southwest of Marshall, and continued northeast across the Interstate into rural portions of Harrison County to just outside the Marshall city limits. The tornado snapped and uprooted numerous trees, pushed metal carports over, ripped roofing material off of a couple of homes, and destroyed a metal outbuilding.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:55 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 Shreveport radar (KSHV), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:30 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

13 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.