EF0 tornado, Mesquite, Texas, March 9, 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

March 9, 2019

Touchdown

7:38 AM CST (13:38 UTC)

Lifted

7:45 AM CST (13:45 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

1.7 miles (2.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Dallas County

Touchdown point

32.752, -96.619

Lift-off point

32.753, -96.591

Record number

1903090738-01

18 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FWD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 81 mph.

• Billboard sign at the church was destroyed, though the structure of the billboard seemed undamaged.
• Brick facade damage and metal roofing peeled back on southwest corner of the building. Trees were notably undisturbed.
• Start of the damage path, just west of the LBJ. Photo is looking towards the north.
• This appears to be where the worst damage occurred. Significant loss of roof material, though most of the wooden decking remained in place. Lots of damage to small trees. A lot of window damage as well, likely the result of flying debris.

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

An upper level disturbance and a Pacific cold front combined to generate scattered thunderstorms late Friday night through Saturday morning across parts of North and Central Texas. Large hail was the primary result, but a few storms also produced damaging winds and one weak tornado. The tornado was embedded along the leading edge of the storm complex and occurred in Mesquite in Dallas County.

A National Weather Service survey team found evidence of EF-0 tornado damage in the city of Mesquite, TX. The damage started on the 1500 block of Allen Dr (just west of|Interstate 635) with damage consisting of loss of roof material, a chimney blown off, tree limbs blown down, and window damage. The path continued to Emmanuel Pentecostal Church which is located on a ridge along I-635 just south of New Market Rd. The church sustained damage to the metal roof (peeled back) and the brick facade on the southwest corner of the building. Notably, the trees seemed undisturbed, and no other buildings appeared to be damaged. One light pole was snapped at the base, facing east. A billboard sign for the church was damaged in that the sign was destroyed, but the structure of the billboard seemed unharmed. The damage path continued across I-635 into a residential area where damage was to roof material, windows, small trees, and fences. Two stop signs on opposite corners from one another were bent over at the base, both facing east. The damage path was very|narrow. Lighter damage was found in the subdivision along the west side of S Belt Line Rd. A few large trees were blown over. The damage seemed to taper off to the east of S Belt Line Rd, with one large tree blown over along Wilkinson Drive, with only light roof damage noted along Corta Dr. No damage was found along Pioneer Rd, so the end of the damage path was likely at the corner of Corta Dr and Lindo Dr.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 09:50 UTC and running to 14:35 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:58 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 Dallas/Ft Worth radar (KFWS), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:36 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

11 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.