Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2019
EF2 tornado, Harvey to Bryan Coulter Arpt, Texas, April 24, 2019
From Harvey to Bryan Coulter Arpt, this EF2 tornado ran 1.7 miles across Brazos County on April 24, 2019, touching down at 4:48 PM CDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $400,000 of property damage.
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 mphthis tornado
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.
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
- EF2
- Date
- April 24, 2019
- Touchdown
- 4:48 PM CDT (21:48 UTC)
- Lifted
- 4:52 PM CDT (21:52 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 1.7 miles (2.8 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $400,000
- County
- Brazos County
- Touchdown point
- 30.687, -96.301
- Lift-off point
- 30.710, -96.312
- Record number
- 1904241548-01
The damage survey
12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HGX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
Clustering storm cells produced a tornado, large hail and some flash flooding.
The tornado caused significant damage to one residential home and four warehouse and commercial buildings. Damage to the warehouse and commercial buildings was EF-2 with surrounding EF-0 to EF-1 damage. One injury occurred to a male in one of the warehouses.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:50 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | HGX |
| 22:00 UTC | 00:51 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | HGX |
| 22:13 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | HGX |
| 22:41 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | HGX |
| 23:44 UTC | 01:45 UTC | Flood Advisory | HGX |
| 02:22 UTC | 05:15 UTC | Flood Advisory | HGX |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z
9.8 hours before the tornado, 255 km from the path. April 24, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -73224 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 4 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1752 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 181 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 126 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z
2.2 hours after it, 255 km from the path. April 25, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 351 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -7 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 633 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 619 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 48 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -36 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 51 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 8.2 K/km
The radar
The Ft Hood radar (KGRK), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:49 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:45 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sw Steep Hollow | Brazos, TX | *** 1 INJ *** CORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM 1 SW STEEP HOLLOW. TORNADO TOUCHDOWN REPORTED BY TAMU METEOROLOGY STUDENTS, MEDIA, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT. DAMAGE TO 4 STRUCTURES. 1 INJURY. DAMAGE SURVEY FOUND 1.6 M |
| 21:45 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Sw Steep Hollow | Brazos, TX | TORNADO TOUCHDOWN AT FM1179 AND COYOTE RUN AS REPORTED BY TAMU METEOROLOGY STUDENTS, MEDIA AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT. DAMAGE TO 4 STRUCTURES. |
| 22:04 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Gause | Milam, TX | SEVERAL TREES DOWN SCATTERED ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST PART OF THE COUNTY. |
| 22:35 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 5 Nne Fountain | Brazos, TX | PUBLIC REPORT OF HAIL ESTIMATED TO GOLF BALL SIZE JUST SE OF HWY 6 AND OSR. |
| 23:00 UTC | HAIL 1 | North Zulch | Madison, TX | DIME TO QUARTER SIZE HAIL WAS REPORTED BY MULTIPLE SOURCES. |
| 23:30 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | North Zulch | Madison, TX | SECTIONS OF HIGHWAYS 21 AND 39 WERE CLOSED DUE TO HIGH WATER IN AND AROUND THE TOWN OF NORTH ZULCH. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 24, 2019
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.