EF0 tornado, Harleton, Texas, June 19, 2019

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

June 19, 2019

Touchdown

6:03 AM CDT (11:03 UTC)

Lifted

6:04 AM CDT (11:04 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

70 yards (64 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

32.627, -94.580

Lift-off point

32.627, -94.577

Record number

1906190503-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS SHV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• true 30 yard wide tor path with convergent damage pattern
• best damage in narrow tor path

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

A weakening complex of showers and thunderstorms entered portions of Northeast Texas during the pre-dawn hours of June 19th, but a strong southwesterly low level jet feeding into these storms interacted with adequate instability still in place for these storms to re-intensify over portions of East Texas, such that they became severe producing damaging winds that downed trees and power lines, which eventually spread into portions of Northwest Louisiana before weakening again shortly after daybreak. These storms also spawned a brief, weak tornado over Harrison County just northwest of the Nesbitt community. ||This complex of thunderstorms left behind a surface boundary which lifted north across Northeast Texas, Southeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Arkansas ahead of an approaching upper level shortwave trough. Strong heating near this surface boundary resulted in the development of moderate instability, with large scale forcing ahead of the approaching trough contributing to the development of a second round of severe thunderstorms during the late afternoon through the evening hours across East Texas. The storms produced damaging winds and large hail, with localized flash flooding in Northeast Wood County before finally weakening during the early morning hours of June 20th.

An EF-0 tornado with maximum estimated winds near 85 mph briefly touched down along Highway 450 along Little Cypress Bayou. Trees were uprooted and large branches were snapped in a convergent pattern which, when paired with radar data, led to the confirmation of a tornado.

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

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.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:53 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), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:00 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

10 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.