EF1 tornado, Anton to Spade, Texas, March 12, 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

March 12, 2019

Touchdown

10:35 PM CDT (03:35 UTC)

Lifted

10:40 PM CDT (03:40 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.4 miles (5.5 km)

Path width

125 yards (114 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

Counties

Hockley and Lamb counties

Touchdown point

33.801, -102.155

Lift-off point

33.847, -102.136

Record number

1903122135-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LUB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

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

Very rich moisture from the Gulf of Mexico overspread all of the region this day ahead of a vigorous upper level low in the Four Corners. Following widespread dense fog and drizzle for much of the morning and afternoon north of a warm front, a broken line of thunderstorms swept east late this evening ahead of a Pacific cold front. These storms encountered very strong low level wind shear along the warm front complete with moderate instability. The amount of wind shear in the lowest few thousand feet resulted in several transient low level mesocyclones within this line of thunderstorms - one of which supported a tornado that inflicted EF1 damage to a home and other structures near Anton (northeast Hockley County). Additional strong and severe wind gusts accompanied a few of these storms resulting in straight line wind damage at times. In spite of the damage, these storms provided much needed and widespread moderate to heavy rain of one to two inches.

A fast-moving tornado developed within a line of thunderstorms and moved north-northeast at 40 to 45 mph. Based on the NWS storm survey and radar data, the total track was determined to be 3.4 miles from extreme northeast Hockley County into far southeast Lamb County (the tornado's length in Hockley County was about 1.8 miles). This tornado caused EF1 damage to a well-built home located about one mile east-southeast of Anton and destroyed a large sheet metal building on the same property. In addition to downing large tree limbs, six power poles were snapped and two large center pivots were heavily damaged. Data from the Lubbock WSR-88D radar confirmed a tornadic debris signature that extended to just over 5000 feet at times. The owner of the house was inside at the time the tornado struck and was not injured, but moments before she had walked outside to see why her satellite TV signal deteriorated. The tornado caused sufficient damage to deem the house a complete loss by her insurance company. Preliminary damage estimates for all structures, personal property, utility poles, and the large center pivots were approximately $500,000.

This is the continuation path of the tornado that began in Hockley County. No damage indicators were available along this segment of the tornado's path, hence the EFU rating. The path was approximated using NWS radar data.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:51 UTC and running to 03:59 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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 Lubbock radar (KLBB), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:32 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

3 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.