EF1 tornado, Chireno, 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 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

April 13, 2019

Touchdown

2:38 PM CDT (19:38 UTC)

Lifted

2:39 PM CDT (19:39 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Nacogdoches County

Touchdown point

31.473, -94.381

Lift-off point

31.482, -94.373

Record number

1904131338-01

29 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• several trees knocked down in the area
• 105 year old pine uprooted.
• tree uprooted in front of Chireno ISD.
• Several trees snapped and uprooted lying north.

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

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.

An EF-1 tornado with maximum estimated winds near 95 mph touched down along County Road 442 a few miles southwest of Chireno, where numerous trees were snapped or uprooted in a heavily wooded area, while continuing northeast along and across County Road 443. The tornado lifted just east of County Road 443, although the rear flank downdraft from this storm tore off a 100 foot section of tin roofing from a vacant chicken house just off of County Road 442. Portions of the roofs from three other adjacent vacant chicken houses were partially lifted up about two inches. Damaging straight line winds of 80-85 mph from this same storm uprooted a tree in front of the Chireno ISD Building on Main Street in Chireno, with numerous trees downed in a north northeasterly direction along Highway 27 about 1-2 miles east of Chireno near the San Augustine County line.

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 19:37 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:47 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:26 UTC and running to 20:30 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 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.

Nacogdoches (Awos) (OCH), 33 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Shreveport radar (KSHV), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:38 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.