Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2018
Unrated tornado, Jayton Kent Co Arpt, Texas, June 1, 2018
This Unrated tornado ran 0.0 miles across Kent County on June 1, 2018, touching down at 8:43 PM CDT and reaching 30 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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
Unratedthis tornado
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
- Unrated
- Date
- June 1, 2018
- Touchdown
- 8:43 PM CDT (01:43 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.0 miles (0.0 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Kent County
- Touchdown point
- 33.130, -100.540
- Lift-off point
- 33.130, -100.540
- Record number
- 1806011943-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Very hot temperatures characterized by highs of 102 to 107 degrees coupled with a dryline focused high based thunderstorm development near the Lubbock area this afternoon. As these storms moved east into richer moisture in Crosby County, one storm escalated significantly in intensity. This supercell thunderstorm delivered major wind and hail damage to Ralls and continued to move east through Crosbyton where several utility poles were downed. The storm then turned more southeast and struck Spur with very large hail before producing a small, brief tornado over open land south of Jayton. The greatest destruction occurred on the west side of Ralls where three large cotton compress buildings were completely destroyed by straight line winds determined to be as high as 90 mph.
Two separate reports of a very brief tornado were received about five miles south of Jayton. A storm spotter was able to photograph the tornado in the fading twilight. The tornado remained over open land.
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) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18:00 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Heat Advisory | LUB |
| 00:11 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LUB |
| 01:02 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LUB |
| 01:08 UTC | 01:39 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LUB |
| 01:41 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LUB |
| 01:52 UTC | 02:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LUB |
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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:45 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
1.7 hours before the tornado, 204 km from the path. June 2, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1737 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -2 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1946 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 3466 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 12 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 31 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 68 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 10.0 K/km
Midland Regional, TX (KMAF), 12:00Z
10.3 hours after it, 204 km from the path. June 2, 2018.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 98 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -474 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 64 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 3097 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 114 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 101 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.2 K/km
The radar
The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 132 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:43 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:03 UTC | HAIL 2.75 | Spur | Dickens, TX | REPORT RELAYED BY DICKENS COUNTY SO |
| 01:09 UTC | NON-TSTM WND GST 70 | 7 N Clairemont | Kent, TX | WIND SPEED ESTIMATED NEAR 70 MPH. |
| 01:14 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 9 Nw Clairemont | Kent, TX | REPORTED BY COOP OBSERVER. |
| 01:56 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 5 Ese Jayton | Stonewall, TX | |
| 02:00 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 5 Wnw Peacock | Stonewall, TX |
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
The other tornadoes of June 1, 2018
14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 1 | 12:11 PM MDT | EF2 | Washakie, WY | 1.0 | 300 | $20,000 | ||
| June 1 | 12:16 PM MDT | EF2 | Johnson, WY | 1.0 | 300 | |||
| June 1 | 1:34 PM MDT | EF0 | Campbell, WY | 1.0 | 25 | |||
| June 1 | 1:41 PM MDT | EF3 | Campbell, WY | 3.8 | 200 | 2 | ||
| June 1 | 1:55 PM MDT | EF1 | Campbell, WY | 0.5 | 25 | $50,000 | ||
| June 1 | 1:59 PM MDT | EF1 | Campbell, WY | 4.6 | 50 | |||
| June 1 | 4:26 PM MDT | EF0 | Dunn, ND | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| June 1 | 4:34 PM MDT | EF2 | Dunn, ND | 3.5 | 200 | $175,000 | ||
| June 1 | 5:53 PM CDT | EF0 | Morton, ND | 7.3 | 100 | $5,000 | ||
| June 1 | 5:55 PM CDT | EF0 | McKenzie, ND | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| June 1 | 6:25 PM CDT | EF0 | Mercer, ND | 1.4 | 75 | |||
| June 1 | 7:36 PM CDT | EF0 | Walworth, SD | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| June 1 | 9:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Valley, NE | 0.0 | 40 | |||
| June 1 | 9:59 PM CDT | EF0 | Madison, NE | 0.1 | 50 |
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.