Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2018

EF0 tornado, Big Spring to Fairview, Texas, August 11, 2018

From Big Spring to Fairview, this EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Howard County on August 11, 2018, touching down at 7:38 PM CDT and reaching 100 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 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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
August 11, 2018
Touchdown
7:38 PM CDT (00:38 UTC)
Lifted
7:40 PM CDT (00:40 UTC)
On the ground
2 minutes
Path length
0.4 miles (0.6 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Howard County
Touchdown point
32.291, -101.518
Lift-off point
32.295, -101.515
Record number
1808111838-01

What the Weather Service recorded

There was an upper trough over West Texas that extended from northern Mexico northeast to the Great Lakes region. A couple of remaining thunderstorm outflow boundaries were across the area, and there was good moisture present. These conditions resulted in a thunderstorm that produced a landspout across the northeast Permian Basin and flash flooding in Scurry County.

A thunderstorm moved across Howard County and produced a landspout four miles northwest of Big Spring. It was located over an open field behind the old Holland Cotton Seed holding facility. No damage was reported by the observer and by the Big Spring EMC who went to the location. The path length and width were estimated.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
01:46 UTC03:45 UTCFlood AdvisoryMAF
18:12 UTC20:15 UTCFlood AdvisoryMAF

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:39 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.

Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 00:00Z

0.6 hours before the tornado, 75 km from the path. August 12, 2018.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 00:00Z on 2018-08-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 78 joules per kilogram, CIN -16, lifted condensation level 1955 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, Midland Regional, TX at 00:00Z on 2018-08-12The 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 -30 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 6 knots.193958Sfc1 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
78 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-16 J/kg
Surface CAPE
399 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1955 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-30 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-27 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
8.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 12:00Z

11.4 hours after it, 75 km from the path. August 12, 2018.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Midland Regional, TX at 12:00Z on 2018-08-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 264 joules per kilogram, CIN -26, lifted condensation level 776 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, Midland Regional, TX at 12:00Z on 2018-08-12The 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 17 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 17 knots.193958Sfc1 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
264 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-26 J/kg
Surface CAPE
903 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
776 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
17 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
11 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Midland/Odessa radar (KMAF), 74 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:39 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
00:38 UTCTORNADO4 Nw Big SpringHoward, TXLANDSPOUT WAS REPORTED FOUR MILES NORTHWEST OF BIG SPRING. IT WAS LOCATED OVER AN OPEN FIELD BEHIND THE OLD HOLLAND COTTON SEED HOLDING FACILITY. NO DAMAGE REPORTED BY OBSERVER AND BY THE BIG SPRING EMC WHO WENT TO THE L

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2018 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

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.