EF1 tornado, Lela to Kelton, Texas, May 16, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 16, 2017

Touchdown

5:16 PM CDT (22:16 UTC)

Lifted

5:17 PM CDT (22:17 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Wheeler County

Touchdown point

35.310, -100.380

Lift-off point

35.311, -100.379

Record number

1705161616-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AMA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 92 mph.

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

An active day of severe weather across central and eastern TX and OK Panhandles. An upper low analyzed near Las Vegas, NV in the morning opened as it bottoms out over srn NM in the afternoon before lifting and deepening again as it ejected over the Panhandles later that evening. Dryline slowly mixed east early afternoon on the 16th and with the more significant synoptic forcing hanging back and fairly meridional flow aloft. Mid to upper 60s dewpts were present over the eastern half of the Panhandles and with the exception of the very western edge of the deep sfc moisture, these dewpts did not mix out much through the day. Some standards parameters across the eastern Panhandles in particular included 400-600 m^2/s^2 Helicity with 3000-4000 J/kg of SBCAPE. This environment lead to numerous very large hail reports and several tornadoes, with one or two being long tracked over several miles.

Tornado observed by storm chaser.

Brief tornado touched down and caused tree damage and damage to a powerline off of County Road 9 in rural Wheeler County.

Multiple reports of a tornado from NWS Employee and storm chasers. This tornado touched down around 525 pm CDT 5 miles south southwest of wheeler. The tornado moved northeast and was on the ground for approximately 9.1 miles and around 19 minutes.

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

27 minutes of warning. NWS AMA issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:49 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:01 UTC and running to 03:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:50 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 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 Amarillo radar (KAMA), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:17 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

19 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.