EF1 tornado, Zephyr, Texas, March 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

March 13, 2019

Touchdown

3:19 AM CDT (08:19 UTC)

Lifted

3:21 AM CDT (08:21 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.2 km)

Path width

230 yards (210 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Brown County

Touchdown point

31.679, -98.800

Lift-off point

31.676, -98.777

Record number

1903130219-01

A potent upper level low pressure system moved into West Central Texas and resulted in a squall line. A few tornadoes developed along the leading edge of the squall line in the eastern portion of the area and resulted in some damage. In addition, there were reports of damaging thunderstorm winds with the line of thunderstorms.

A National Weather Service team surveyed damage in Zephyr. They found evidence of tornado damage consistent with an EF1 tornado, with estimated wind speeds from 86 to 110 mph. Along its path, the tornado overturned a small residence and threw it 50 feet from its foundation. Thankfully, the resident of the home was uninjured. The tornado tore off several roofs. It destroyed awnings and power lines, snapped power poles and trees and damaged a grandstand. The tornado wrapped the metal of a roof tightly around a tree as it blew out the wall of a store.

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 07:52 UTC and running to 10:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:00 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 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 Dyess AFB radar (KDYX), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:21 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

4 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.