EF0 tornado, Wellington, Texas, March 28, 2017

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

March 28, 2017

Touchdown

5:57 PM CDT (22:57 UTC)

Lifted

6:01 PM CDT (23:01 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.1 miles (5.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Collingsworth County

Touchdown point

34.890, -100.270

Lift-off point

34.922, -100.231

Record number

1703281657-01

Quite an active day across the Panhandles. An upper level low pressure was progressing eastward centered over the Arizona/New Mexico border. This helped to advect moisture into the region from the south, mostly confined in the mid-levels between 850-700 hPa due to a more stable surface airmass underneath some cloud cover. In-conjunction with MLCAPE of 1000-1500 J/kg with a warm front draped across portions of the far SE TX Panhandle with shifting surface winds and dewpoint contrast along the front, the set up was there for local lift and possibly even a tornado. Eventually going into the afternoon and early evening hours, supercells did form south of the warm front and produced large hail and strong winds. One supercell formed in the more unstable surface airmass well to the south and moved NE. As it did so approaching the warm front boundary, low level wind shift caused a tornado to form in Collingsworth County before the storm weakened moving north of the front into a more stable airmass.

Rain wrapped tornado is on the ground approximately 4 NW Wellington.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:28 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:53 UTC and running to 01:47 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:07 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.

Childress Municipal (CDS), 53 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Altus AFB radar (KFDR), 131 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:55 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

15 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.