EF2 tornado, Garrison to Timpson, Texas, May 11, 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

May 11, 2017

Touchdown

8:33 PM CDT (01:33 UTC)

Lifted

8:45 PM CDT (01:45 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

4.6 miles (7.4 km)

Path width

800 yards (732 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.0 million

Counties

Nacogdoches, Shelby and Rusk counties

Touchdown point

31.815, -94.499

Lift-off point

31.869, -94.455

Record number

1705111933-01

46 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 123 mph.

• roof is gone as is the west wall.
• all six chicken coops sustained damage. one destroyed, and chickens lost.
• this 40x60 farm building was destroyed. at least 4 others sustained partial roof or siding damage.
• 5 snapped trees on both sides of the street. one landed on this house.

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

Showers and thunderstorms developed over Eastcentral Texas and Southeast Oklahoma during the afternoon hours of May 11th, ahead of a positive tilt upper trough that shifted east across Northern Oklahoma and Southern Kansas. The dryline managed to mix east to near the I-35 corridor by late afternoon, before a cold front associated with the upper trough overtook the dryline and shifted southeast into Southeast Oklahoma an extreme Northeast Texas late. The air mass ahead of the front became moderately unstable by mid to late afternoon, with upper forcing ahead of the trough contributing to an increase in strong to severe thunderstorms across much of East Texas and North Louisiana. Damaging winds and hail were common with the stronger storms, with even isolated tornadoes also spawned across portions of East Texas and Northern Caddo Parish in Northwest Louisiana. These storms weakened by late evening with the loss of instability.

The Garrison area of Northeast Nacogdoches County sustained significant wind and tornado damage related to a supercell thunderstorms that moved over this area. En EF-2 tornado with maximum estimated winds between 120-130 mph touched down southwest of Garrison along Highway 59, before moving through downtown Garrison. Several businesses along Highway 59 sustained roof damage, including what had once been a dentist's office, a bank, and an auto repair shop. The dentist's office was particularly hard hit, where EF-2 damage had occurred when a section of the roof was removed. The auto shop roof was lifted and deposited in the bank's parking lot. The auto shop also had two outer cinder block walls collapse as a result of the roof tearing off, which also indicated EF-2 damage. The tornado moved northeast along Highway 59 into extreme Southeast Rusk County, where sporadic trees were topped on both sides of the road.

This is a continuation of the Nacogdoches County EF-2 tornado that initially touched down just southwest of Garrison along Highway 59. Additional EF-2 damage, with estimated winds of 115-120 mph occurred in the extreme southeast corner of Rusk County along Highway 59, where the tornado tore through a chicken farm, destroying one chicken coop and killing all chickens, while also damaging 5 other coops. Several homes sustained roof damage from snapped or uprooted trees, and at least 20 outbuildings were damaged or destroyed. The tornado also snapped several power poles in this area and continued northeast along Highway 59 into Northwest Shelby County.

The is a continuation of the Nacogdoches and Rusk County tornado that initially touched down just southwest of Garrison. This tornado had weakened into an EF-1 tornado with maximum estimated winds of 90-95 mph as it entered Northwest Shelby County along Highway 59. At least one outbuilding was heavily damaged as the roof and one wall were torn off, and numerous trees were snapped or uprooted. The tornado finally lifted just beyond County Road 4759 northwest of Highway 59.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS SHV issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:32 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:53 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:46 UTC and running to 05:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:32 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

10 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.