EF3 tornado, Center to Glenfawn, Texas, April 13, 2019

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

April 13, 2019

Touchdown

1:00 PM CDT (18:00 UTC)

Lifted

2:00 PM CDT (19:00 UTC)

On the ground

60 minutes

Path length

41.1 miles (66.2 km)

Path width

880 yards (805 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

20

Property damage

$11 million

Counties

Houston, Cherokee, Nacogdoches and Rusk counties

Touchdown point

31.428, -95.272

Lift-off point

31.905, -94.859

Record number

1904131200-01

135 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HGX and NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 160 mph.

• eastern edge of damage path
• Trees are 100 yards south of GPS location
• headstones shifted off foundations
• outbuilding destroyed 100 yards to west

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

A storm system moving eastward across the state produced several tornadoes, some wind damage and large hail.

A strong upper level trough entered the Southern Plains during the afternoon hours of April 12th, which allowed southerly low level winds to gradually return warm and moist air from the Gulf of Mexico north into East Texas and North Louisiana. An upper level disturbance ejecting northeast ahead of the trough across portions of East Texas and North Louisiana during the early morning hours of April 13th carried enough elevated instability, shear, and forcing north of an advancing warm front over Southeast Texas and South Louisiana, such that scattered strong to severe thunderstorms developed, with numerous reports of large hail and occasional damaging winds received. The warm front continued to gradually mix north northwest into East Texas and Northcentral Louisiana by late morning and early afternoon hours, with a very warm, moist, and unstable air mass noted over Deep East Texas and portions of Northcentral Louisiana south of the front. Coupled with even stronger forcing and low level shear ahead of the approaching upper trough, additional strong to severe thunderstorms developed near and south of the front from late morning through the afternoon, producing numerous reports of damaging winds with several tornadoes across portions of East Texas. These showers and thunderstorms diminished by early evening with the departure of the trough, and the arrival of an associated cold front which brought about cooler, drier, and more stable air southeast into the region.

The EF-3 tornado damage mainly consisted of snapped pine trees indicative of high end EF-1 damage but much more severe EF-3 damage was discovered northeast of Weches. The most severe damage occurred to a double wide trailer that was destroyed and thrown over 150 years from its original foundation. The one female occupant of the trailer was killed. The path width was as wide as a half mile in places. The tornado continued into Cherokee County and was on the ground for more than 40 miles.

An EF-3 tornado with maximum estimated winds near 160 mph that originally touched down in Houston County about 9 miles northeast of Crockett crossed the Neches River into Southwest Cherokee County, where it snapped and uprooted thousands of trees along its path. The tornado paralleled Highway 21 before reaching the city of Alto, where it severely damaged or destroyed approximately 20 homes. Included along the damage path southwest of Alto was the Caddo Mounds Sate Historic Site building, which had its roof torn off, nearly all of its exterior walls removed, and was left to only a few interior rooms in the building. Several people were outside running to get inside for safety when the building was destroyed, resulting in one fatality and a number of serious injuries. Multiple cars in the parking lot were thrown 150 yards into trees and across Highway 21. The tornado then went on to lift and destroy a double wide mobile home, throwing it 50 yards. As the tornado continued along Highway 21, its most significant damage was at a single family home and the St. Thomas Chapel which saw their roofs and exterior walls collapsed. Winds were estimated at 150 mph at this point. ||As the tornado neared Alto, it destroyed three homes along Highway 294 and Singletary Street, recording high end EF-3 damage as it wiped the lower level of a two story home off of its foundation and left the top story of the home 20 yards away from the foundation. This damage was reviewed by tornado damage experts from the National Weather Service (NWS) Southern Region Headquarters, NWS Norman, and the Warning Decision Training Division who all agreed it was high end EF-3 damage (with maximum estimated winds near 160 mph) based off how the home walls were separated from the bolts which anchored them to the foundation. Surrounding damage indicators also validated the EF-3 tornado determination. ||The storm then went on to destroy several homes and mobile homes at nearby Alto Elementary School and Alto High School. It also snapped a metal power pole before crossing Highway 69, where it went on to snap and debark several trees in rural Cherokee County north of Alto before crossing FM 343 and into extreme Northwest Nacogdoches County.

This is a continuation of the Cherokee County EF-3 tornado that tore through the Alto community. This tornado continued to track northeast across extreme Northwest Nacogdoches County, where numerous trees were snapped and uprooted along County Road 898 and FM 1648 as it approached the Sacul community. The tornado moved through the southeast sections of Sacul, where additional trees were snapped and uprooted, headstones were shifted off their foundations in a cemetery, a metal flag pole was bent at a 45 degree angle, and a tree fell on a home on Highway 204. The tornado continued northeast crossing County Road 988 and just east of County Road 991 near the Rusk County line, where numerous trees were snapped and uprooted, and a large section of a metal roof was torn off of a home, before crossing over into Southern Rusk County. The damage to the home here was the strongest in Northwest Nacogdoches County, with maximum estimated winds near 120 mph.

This is a continuation of the Cherokee and Northwest Nacogdoches County tornado that tore through the Alto and Sacul communities. This tornado crossed County Roads 4265 and 4238 in extreme Southern Rusk County, where numerous trees were snapped and uprooted. The tornado continued northeast across the East Fork Angelina River, Highway 84, and County Road 4233, where it began to weaken as much of the damage over these areas consisted of snapped large limbs. The tornado finally lifted on County Road 4233 near the intersection of FM 2753. The maximum estimated winds in Southern Rusk County was near 105 mph primarily in the area of County Roads 4265 and 4238.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

48 minutes of warning. NWS HGX issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:12 UTC, 48 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:26 UTC and running to 19:07 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:12 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), 145 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:00 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 2019 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

35 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.