Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2019
EF1 tornado, Arlington, Texas, June 16, 2019
This EF1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Tarrant County on June 16, 2019, touching down at 3:25 PM CDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $200,000 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 mphthis tornado
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- June 16, 2019
- Touchdown
- 3:25 PM CDT (20:25 UTC)
- Lifted
- 3:26 PM CDT (20:26 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $200,000
- County
- Tarrant County
- Touchdown point
- 32.755, -97.094
- Lift-off point
- 32.753, -97.091
- Record number
- 1906161425-01
The damage survey
38 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.
- Rolling Hills Country Club
- part of fence blown over.. will adjust point later
- more significant tree damage extends eastward down the street
- building had window damage on 1st floor north side. building also had one window with damage on 3rd floor on south side. no tree damage on property
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
Thunderstorms erupted along an outflow boundary between the Red River and the Interstate 20 corridor on the afternoon of Sunday June 16 (Father's Day 2019) as a disturbance moved in from the northwest. Storms produced significant wind damage along with a few brief tornadoes as they pushed southeast through the DFW Metroplex, with additional severe weather reports continuing as storms pushed southeast into Central and East Texas.
A National Weather Service survey team confirmed a brief tornado occurred in Arlington across a neighborhood east of Collins Street. The pattern of the damage in this neighborhood indicated a brief EF-1 tornado that dissipated before reaching the AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Park area. A few homes in the neighborhood had significant loss of roofing and several trees were snapped. Additional damage in Arlington was a result of straight-line winds of 60-70 mph.
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.
The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:03 UTC and running to 23:49 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18:03 UTC | 23:49 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | FWD |
| 19:55 UTC | 21:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FWD |
| 20:50 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Flood Advisory | FWD |
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 19:50 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
8.4 hours before the tornado, 20 km from the path. June 16, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 439 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -332 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 206 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 640 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 39 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 316 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 338 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 5.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.1 K/km
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z
3.6 hours after it, 20 km from the path. June 17, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -68397 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 60 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1941 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 46 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 165 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 216 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
The radar
The Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:25 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:50 UTC | HAIL 1 | Reno | Parker, TX | QUARTER SIZE HAIL REPORT RECEIVED VIA TWITTER. |
| 19:59 UTC | TSTM WND GST 63 | Fort Worth | Tarrant, TX | WIND GUST TO 63 MPH OBSERVED AT FORT WORTH NAVAL AIR STATION JRB (KNFW). |
| 20:04 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Pelican Bay | Tarrant, TX | NICKEL SIZE HAIL REPORTED NEAR PELICAN BAY. |
| 20:07 UTC | TORNADO | Fort Worth | Tarrant, TX | A BRIEF EF-0 TORNADO WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 85 MPH TRACKED FOR ABOUT 1.25 MILES FROM THE CRAWFORD FARMS TO VISTA MEADOWS SUBDIVISION. |
| 20:16 UTC | TSTM WND GST 66 | Fort Worth | Tarrant, TX | WIND GUST TO 66 MPH MEASURED AT FORT WORTH ALLIANCE AIRPORT (KAFW). |
| 20:25 UTC | TORNADO | 1.5 Nne Arlington | Tarrant, TX | A BRIEF EF-1 TOR DEVELOPED JUST W/NW OF THE AT&T STADIUM & GLOBE LIFE PARK. SEVERAL TREES WERE SNAPPED & LOSS OF ROOFING |
| 20:27 UTC | HAIL 1 | Bedford | Tarrant, TX | QUARTER SIZE HAIL REPORTED IN BEDFORD. |
| 20:28 UTC | TSTM WND GST 59 | 14 N Fort Worth | Tarrant, TX | 59 MPH WIND GUST MEASURED IN NORTH FORT WORTH |
| 20:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Haltom City | Tarrant, TX | NUMEROUS TREES DOWN AND HOMES DAMAGED IN HALTOM CITY, SOUTHEAST OF N BEACH ST/NE 28TH ST INTERSECTION |
| 20:36 UTC | TSTM WND GST 69 | Dalworthington Gardens | Tarrant, TX | 69 MPH GUST AT DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS |
| 20:39 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Irving | Dallas, TX | MULTIPLE STRUCTURES DAMAGED INCLUDING A COMMERCIAL BUILDING |
| 20:45 UTC | TORNADO | 1 E Farmers Branch | Dallas, TX | A BRIEF TORNADO IS BELIEVED TO HAVE MOVED NORTHWEST ACROSS PART OF FARMERS BRANCH NEAR THE JOHNSON`S OUTPOST YMCA ON VALLEY VIEW LANE. PART OF THE ROOF WAS TORN OFF OF THE BUILDING AND THE ROOF WAS BLOWN TO THE NORTHWEST |
| 20:47 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Farmers Branch | Dallas, TX | MULTIPLE UNITS DAMAGED AT THE VILLA CREEK APARTMENTS |
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 June 16, 2019
12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 16 | 2:18 PM CDT | EF0 | Kingfisher, OK | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| June 16 | 2:19 PM CDT | EF0 | Kingfisher, OK | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| June 16 | 3:23 PM EDT | EF1 | Cuyahoga, OH | 2.2 | 150 | $10,000 | ||
| June 16 | 2:58 PM CDT | Unrated | Tarrant, TX | 0.0 | 10 | |||
| June 16 | 3:07 PM CDT | EF0 | Tarrant, TX | 1.3 | 132 | $150,000 | ||
| June 16 | 4:11 PM EDT | EF1 | Portage, OH | 13.5 | 250 | $275,000 | ||
| June 16 | 4:44 PM EDT | EF0 | Trumbull, OH | 6.0 | 250 | $25,000 | ||
| June 16 | 3:45 PM CDT | EF0 | Dallas, TX | 0.1 | 50 | $20,000 | ||
| June 16 | 5:03 PM EDT | EF1 | Mercer, PA | 1.1 | 150 | |||
| June 16 | 6:18 PM EDT | EF1 | Butler, PA | 1.5 | 400 | |||
| June 16 | 5:50 PM CDT | EF0 | McClain, OK | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| June 16 | 7:55 PM EDT | EF1 | Indiana, PA | 0.3 | 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.